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No. 


JESUS   CHRIST 
BEFORE    HIS    MINISTRY 


JESUS   CHRIST: 

His  Person  — His  Authority  — His  Work. 

I. 

Jesus  Christ  before  His  Ministry. 

$1.25. 

II. 

Jesus  Christ  During  His  Minis- 

try.    [In  press.) 

III. 

The  Death  and  Resurrection  of 

Jesus  Christ.    [In preparation.) 

JESUS  CHRIST 

BEFORE    HIS    MINISTRY 


BY 


EDMOND   STAFFER 

PROFESSOR     IN    THE     FACULTY    OF     PROTESTANT 
THEOLOGY    AT    PARIS 


STraiislatfti  bg 
LOUISE   SEYMOUR   HOUGHTON 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1896 


Copyright,  1896, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


SnifafrsitD  Preaa: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge, 


PREFACE 


"  TESUS  CHRIST:  his  Person,  his  Au- 
thority,  his  Ministry,"  —  such  is  the 
title  of  a  work  which  I  purpose  to  write. 
In  the  first  volume,  which  I  now  publish, 
I  shall  endeavor  to  relate  the  life  of  Jesus 
before  his  ministry. 

Of  the  time  which  passed  over  him  until 
his  thirtieth  year  we  know  only  so  much 
as  the  evangelists  Matthew  and  Luke  have 
preserved  for  us.  But  it  is  not  from  the 
facts  which  they  bring  to  light  that  I  shall 
draw  the  pages  which  follow.  To  their 
touching  narratives  of  the  childhood  of 
Jesus  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  nothing 
to  add,  and  from  them  nothing  to  subtract ; 
and  the  deep  poetry  which  breathes  in 
these  marvellous  stories  defies  all  criticism. 


VI  PREFACE 

To  touch  them  is  to  spoil  them.  More 
than  that,  my  aim  is  not  to  repeat  the 
little  that  we  know  about  the  youth  of 
Jesus ;  it  is  to  seek  for  that  which  has 
not  been  told  us. 

The  early  Christians,  surprised  at  the 
sobriety  of  the  gospel  narratives,  tried  to 
make  up  for  the  silence  of  history,  and 
composed  the  apocryphal  Gospels  of  the 
Infancy.  I  am  attempting  a  study  of  this 
sort,  but  I  have  no  intention  of  writing  a 
work  of  pure  imagination,  like  that  of  the 
authors  of  the  antique  legends.  I  would 
fain  say  what  must  have  been  the  life  of 
Jesus  until  his  thirtieth  year,  by  deducing 
from  known  facts  some  facts  unknown, 
and  permitting  myself  only  to  observe  and 
to  relate. 


CONTENTS 


Pack 

Preface   v 

Introduction ix 

Chapter 

I.    The  Childhood  of  Jesus  ....  3 

II.    Early  Beliefs 19 

III.   Jesus  at   Twelve  Years   of  Age  39 

IV".    First  Impressions  AND  Experiences  57 

V.    Studies  and  Reading 75 

VI.   Jesus  and  the  Pharisees     ...  93 

VII.   Jesus  and  the  Essenes     ....  109 

VIII.   Jesus  and  John  the  Baptist    .     .  121 
IX.    The  Messianic  Ideal  of  Jesus  at 

Thirty  Years  of  Age    ....  137 

X.   The  Originality  of  Jesus    .    .    .  161 

Conclusion 175 


INTRODUCTION 


TTOW  could  Jesus  have  believed  him- 
self   and    proclaimed    himself    the 

Messiah  ? 

In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, when  historical  criticism,  with  its 
severe  and  certain  methods,  addressed  it- 
self to  the  Gospels  for  the  first  time,  the 
question  was  answered :  Jesus  never  be- 
lieved himself  to  be  the  Messiah.  He 
owed  his  career  only  to  the  enthusiasm 
of  excited  disciples,  who,  after  the  death 
of  their  Master,  attributed  to  him  in  good 
faith  acts  which  he  had  not  done  and 
words  which  he  had  not  spoken. 

But  this  solution  of  the  question  quickly 
became  antiquated.  Criticism  kept  on  in 
its  work,  and  forty  years  of  patient  and 


X  INTRODUCTION 

conscientious  labors  have  compelled  the 
impartial  historian  to  refuse  this  explana- 
tion. It  has  been  demonstrated  with  the 
most  rigorous  certainty  that  Jesus  gave 
the  most  surprising  witness  that  he  be- 
lieved himself  to  be  really  the  Messiah 
expected  by  his  people,  and  that  he 
announced  himself   as   such. 

Next  came  Kenan's  explanation.  Jesus 
first  preached  the  pure  religion  of  the 
Spirit,  —  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  the 
reign  of  charity  and  happiness  by  a  uni- 
versal brotherhood  ;  and  then,  carried 
away  by  his  success,  he  permitted  himself 
to  be  called  Son  of  David,  that  is,  Mes- 
siah ;  and,  little  by  little,  by  a  sort  of 
unconscious  deceit,  and  under  the  do- 
minion of  an  illusion  of  which  he  was 
only  in  part  the  dupe,  he  believed  in  his 
own  Messiahship.  He  persuaded  himself 
that  the  apocaljrptic  hopes  of  his  people 
would  soon  be  realized  in  his  own  person, 
and  he  died  the  victim  of  this  holy  and 
religious  madness. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

To  Renan,  Jesus  is  to  be  explained  in  a 
single  word,  —  charm.  He  thought  that 
this  word  solved  the  enigma  of  his  life. 
He  charmed  the  multitudes,  —  his  disjciples, 
women,  the  sick,  —  and  he  ended  by  charm- 
ing himself.  The  pious  and  gentle  Rabbi 
was  before  all  things  a  charmer,  and  every- 
thing becomes  clear  when  we  see  deeply 
into  all  that  this  word  "  charm  "  includes. 
If  he  spoke,  his  words  charmed.  In  the 
early  months  of  the  Galilean  ministry  his 
words  were  precepts  full  of  gentleness, 
exquisite  words  that  consoled,  delight- 
ful parables  which  enchanted  the  mul- 
titudes. By  charm  his  cures  are  to  be 
explained,  for  he  incontestably  did  per- 
form cures.  Contact  with  his  person,  the 
sound  of  his  voice,  his  face  as  well,  every- 
thing about  him  was  charming,  every- 
thing was  of  exquisite  gentleness  and 
suave  kindness. 

Then  came  the  evil  days.  Envy  and 
hatred  pursued  him  as  they  always  pursue 
those  who  succeed  and  are  greatly  loved. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

Then  Jesus,  by  a  natural  reaction,  felt  his 
confidence  in  himself  increasing.  Pene- 
trated as  much  with  the  enthusiasm  which 
he  continued  to  breathe  as  with  the  oppo- 
sition to  himself  which  continually  became 
more  pronounced,  he  had  the  simplicity  to 
believe  himself  the  Messiah,  and,  giving 
himself  up  to  this  idea  even  to  martyi'dom, 
he  was  crucified  and  died. 

But  the  memory  which  he  left  behind 
remained,  with  its  ever-growing  charm,  — 
for  death  always  magnifies  and  transfigures. 
Such  a  memory,  the  circumstances  being 
favorable,  must  inevitably  beget  for  him 
disciples,  give  him  a  Church,  conquer  the 
world  for  him. 

The  starting-point  of  the  triumphs  of 
the  invisible  Christ  was  the  hallucination 
of  Mary  Magdalen,  one  of  the  women  who 
had  most  loved  him.  Her  devotion  was 
such  that  she  believed  that  she  saw  him 
again,  and  insisted  that  she  had  seen  him. 
Now,  at  that  period  a  resurrection  from 
the   dead  appeared   to   be   a  highly   pos- 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

sible  tiling.  Mary  Magdalen's  exclama- 
tion, "  He  is  risen  from  the  dead !  "  soon 
became  every  one's  word,  and  the  Christian 
Church  was  founded. 

This  explanation  —  "  charm  "  —  is  evi- 
dently the  only  one  which  may  be  accepted, 
and  is  in  fact  that  of  those  of  our  contem- 
poraries who  are  not  Christians,  —  and  they 
are  legion,  —  for  there  is  no  half-way,  the 
dilemma  is  inexorable  ;  and  Kenan,  in  spite 
of  the  scientific  imperfections  of  his  book, 
has  rendered  a  very  great  service  to  sci- 
ence. He  has  shown  that  the  problem 
that  concerns  Christ  is  entirely  a  psycho- 
logical problem.  The  question  is,  to  know 
what  was  taking  place  in  the  soul  of  Jesus. 
He  called  himself  the  Messiah.  That  is 
proved  ;  it  is  certain.  How  did  he  reach 
that  point  ?  Was  he  crazy,  —  yes  or  no  ? 
Such  it  seems  to  us  is  the  sole  alternative 
which  henceforth  forces  itself  between  be- 
lievers and  unbelievers.  The  question 
appears  to  us  absolutely  clear  and  precise. 
It  can  only  be  solved  by  a  third  supposi- 


XIV  INTRO  J)  UCTION 

tion.  Renan  has  very  clearly  shown  this, 
and  herein  lies  the  entire  scientific  value 
of  his  work. 

To  this  question,  Was  he  mad,  —  yes  or 
no  ?  we  shall  try  to  reply,  and  we  shall  en- 
deavor to  do  it  purely  as  a  historian.  Our 
plan  is  to  observe,  to  ascertain  the  facts, 
and  to  make  them  known.  We  shall  not 
draw  from  them  the  dogmatic  consequences 
which  they  may  bear.  Our  task  is  simply 
that  of  the  historian. 

Do  we,  then,  hope  completely  to  solve, 
by  this  purely  historic  method,  the  eternal 
question  of  the  Christ?  For  everybody 
in  general,  no ;  for  it  is  possible  to  reach 
only  partial  results,  or  rather  only  one 
result,  —  he  was  not  mad  ;  a  wholly  nega- 
tive result,  which  leads  at  once  to  another 
question,  What,  then,  was  he  ?  And  this 
second  question  is  unanswerable  by  the 
historian,  because  the  documents  which 
might  solve  it  are  wanting. 

This  penury  of  documents  will  always 
be  the  cause  of  a  continual  return  to  the 


INTROD  UCTION  XV 

examination  of  Cliiist's  character.  Pure 
science  can  never  exhaust  it.  To  this 
question,  What,  then,  was  he  ?  it  is  no 
longer  for  history  to  reply,  for  it  cannot. 
We  enter  here  upon  a  moral  question.  If 
Jesus  was  not  led  away  by  a  monstrous 
illusion,  he  spoke  truly  ;  if  he  spoke  truly, 
he  was  what  he  said  he  was,  —  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Saviour  of  men,  the  Son  of  God. 
In  this  reply,  the  moral  character  of  the 
historian  becomes  involved.  He  is  no 
longer  on  the  ground  of  demonstrated 
facts  and  historic  verifications,  but  upon 
that  of  religious  faith  and  personal  con- 
viction; and  a  religious  belief  cannot  be 
scientifically  demonstrated. 

The  believer  says :  Jesus  will  never  be 
explained  by  science,  because  he  is  the 
Revelation  of  God  himself,  and  incompre- 
hensibility is  one  of  the  most  certain  marks 
of  his  divinity.  The  pure  historian  will 
always  say:  Jesus  is  not  explained  by 
science,  because  the  documents  are  want- 
ing, and  we  have  not  sufficient  data  con- 


XVI  IN  TROD  UC  Tl  ON 

cerning  him  to  solve  the  enigma  of  his 
appearance  by  historic  methods.  But  this 
dilemma  does  not  embarrass  the  believer. 
It  is  enough  for  liim  to  know  that  no 
scientific  demonstration  is  opposed  to  his 
faith,  for  he  asks  not  of  science  to  estab- 
lish his  faith,  to  prove  it,  to  show  it  to  be 
true.  Faith  is  not  to  be  demonstrated ;  it 
simply  aifirms  itself,  simply  shows  itself 
under  pain  of  ceasing  to  be  faith  and  be- 
coming what  is  called  sight,  —  that  is, 
either  a  sensible  or  an  intellectual  cer- 
titude. For  in  questions  of  faith  there 
can  be  neither  sensible  nor  intellectual 
evidence,  but  only  moral  evidence.  At 
bottom  the  believer  and  the  non-believer 
are  divided  only  upon  one  point.  To  the 
second,  moral  evidence  does  not  suffice; 
to  the  first  (and  we  are  of  this  number) 
it  does  suffice. 


JESUS  CHRIST 

HIS  PERSON,  HIS  AUTHORITY,  HIS  WORK 


JESUS  CHRIST  BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY 


THE   CHILDHOOD   OF  JESUS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   CHILDHOOD    OF   JESUS 

JESUS  was  brought  up  at  Nazareth.  In 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  of 
Rome,  about  1890  years  ago,i  this  was 
the  name  2  of  a  small  town  hidden  away 
among  the  hills  of  Galilee,  and  making 
part  of  the  Roman  province  of  Sjo-ia.  It 
was  twenty-five  leagues  north  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  eight  or  nine  hours'  walk  from 
Capernaum. 

Its  general  aspect  was  dull  and  mean. 
Nazareth  was  a  cluster  of  cubical  houses 
without  character  or  elegance,  built  in 
terraces  in  the  hollow  of  an  amphitheatre 
of  rocky  hills.  Irregularly  disposed,  they 
formed  a  confused  medley  of  small  white 

1  It  is  impossible  to  fix  the  exact  date.  The  first 
ten  oT  twelve  years  of  Jesus'  life  must  have  lain  be- 
tween the  years  of  Rome  750  and  765. 

2  According  to  the  best  manuscripts,  the  corre^'t 
Greek  transliteration  of  this  word  is  Nazara ;  but  we 
retain  the  name  Nazareth,  consecrated  by  usage. 


4  JESUS   CHRIST 

flat-roofed  dwellings,  threshing-floors  and 
wine-presses.  Here  were  pits  hollowed  out 
of  the  ground ;  there  tombs  hewn  out  of 
the  rock.  The  fig-tree,  the  olive,  the  cac- 
tus grew  everjnyhere,  and  now  and  then, 
between  the  houses,  a  tiny  field  of  wheat. 

The  streets  were  rough  and  uneven ;  and 
the  lanes,  narrow,  crooked,  and  steep,  were 
often  crossed  by  streamlets  from  the  ra- 
vines in  the  hills  north  of  the  town. 

We  are  told  that  Nazareth  contained 
three  or  four  thousand  inhabitants.  This 
estimate  is  certainly  excessive.  Judging 
by  the  small  area  which  it  covered,  Naza- 
reth was  a  mere  village.  It  is  true  that  in 
the  Orient  men  and  beasts  can  huddle  them- 
selves into  a  very  small  space;  but  we 
cannot  credit  more  than  fifteen  hundred  or 
two  thousand  inhabitants  to  a  village 
which  had  only  one  synagogue,  one  foun- 
tain, and  one  public  square. 

The  fountain  is  still  there.  Springs  do 
not  change.  That  of  Nazareth  is  to-day 
what  it  always  was,  —  the  gathering-place 
of  the  women  and  young  girls,  who  come 
twice  a  day  to  draw  the  water  needed  for 
the  household. 

Let  us   imagine   ourselves   in   the    first 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  5 

century.  Here  they  come,  with  alert  step; 
and  among  them  Mary,  the  wife  of  Joseph 
the  carpenter,  carrying  her  empty  water- 
jar  crosswise  on  her  head.  She  waits  for 
her  turn,  chats  with  her  companions,  fills 
her  pitcher,  and  goes  away,  with  the  grace- 
ful, flexible  step  which  is  that  of  all  the 
women  of  her  country.  Her  dress  consists 
of  wide  trousers  which  leave  hare  the  lower 
part  of  the  leg,  and  a  robe  with  open  sleeves 
which  leave  her  arms  also  exposed.  A  few 
coins  gleam  among  the  braids  of  her  hair. 
When  Jesus,  her  eldest  son,  has  grown  a 
little  older,  he  will  come  with  his  mother 
and  will  help  her  to  fill  and  carry  her 
pitcher.  Later  he  will  come  alone,  to 
spare  Mary  all  fatigue ;  and,  to  quote  from 
the  simple-hearted  chronicler  of  1187 :  Ait 
missel  dc  cele  fontaine  lavait  Nostre  Dame 
les  drapels  de  coi  ele  envelopet  Nostre  Sei- 
gneur. De  cele  fontaine  envoiait  querre  Nos- 
tre Dame  par  Nostre  Seigneur^  quant  il  fut 
un  peu  grant,  et  il  y  aloit  volontiers.^ 

1  "  At  the  stream  from  this  fountain  Our  Lady 
washed  the  linen  in  which  she  wrapped  Our  Lord. 
To  this  fountain  Our  Lady  sent  Our  Lord  to  bring 
water,  when  he  was  a  little  grown ;  and  he  went  will- 
ingly." —  La  Citez  de  Jerusalem. 


6  JESUS    CHRIST 

Mary  retui'iis  home.  Her  house  is  low 
and  square,  with  a  court  before  it  and  a 
terrace  on  the  roof.  Let  us  enter.  We 
are  in  a  large  room  without  windows,  and 
filled  with  all  sorts  of  utensils.  The  door 
is  wide,  and  by  day  is  always  open,  and 
the  brilliant  light  of  the  Orient  enters  in 
floods.  There  are  no  tables,  but  there  are 
rugs,  and  on  the  walls  are  hung  a  few 
garments,    robes  and  veils. 

The  dwelling  is  narrow,  and  the  family 
numerous.  Joseph  and  Mary  have  at 
least  seven  children.  There  are,  to  begin 
with,  five  sons:  the  eldest  bears  the  name 
Jehoshua,  and  the  others  are  Yakob, 
Joseph,  Youda,  Shimeon,  —  that  is,  Jesus, 
James,  Joseph,  Jude,  and  Simon.  As  to 
the  daughters  we  know  neither  their 
names  nor  their  number;  but  Joseph  and 
Mary  have  at  least  two.^  These  nine 
people,  perhaps  more,  all  live  in  the  one 
room  of  this  house ;  and  this  room  serves 
for  all  purposes. 2  Here  Joseph  works  at 
his  carpenter's  trade;  here  all  the  family 

1  "  His  sisters."     Mark  vi.  3. 

2  "  The  one  room."  This  was  the  usual  condition  ; 
but  it  is  very  possible  that  Joseph  and  Mary  had  a 
house  of  two  or  three  rooms. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  7 

sleep;  they  all  take  their  meals  here,  and 
here  also  Mary  does  the  cooking. 

The  walls  of  this  poor  dwelling  are  not 
of  stone,  not  even  of  brick.  They  are 
made  of  sun-dried  clay.  An  outer  stair- 
case gives  access  to  the  roof,  which  forms 
a  terrace,  the  floor  of  which,  a  mixture  of 
chalk  and  sand  with  small  pebbles  and 
ashes,  has  become  a  sort  of  hardened  soil 
which  shows  here  and  there  a  sparse  vege- 
tation. In  summer,  on  fine  starlight 
nights,  all  the  family  sleep  here,  each  one 
rolled  in  his  blanket,  for  the  heat  of  the 
common  room  is  insupportable,  and  the 
swarming  insects  make  it  almost  intoler- 
able to   stay  there. 

An  inventory  of  Joseph's  household 
goods  would  show,  first  of  all,  a  carpenter's 
bench  like  our  own,  and  its  tools;  a 
kitchen  furnace  with  two  places,  a  sheet 
of  iron  for  roasting  wheat  or  baking  bread ; 
a  few  leathern  bottles,  some  wooden  bowls, 
one  or  two  earthen  pitchers,  some  goblets 
and  cups;  and  that  is  all.  Joseph  and 
Mary  have  no  plates,  no  forks  or  spoons. 
The  beds  are  mere  pallets,  rolled  up 
every  morning  and  placed  upon  an  ele- 
vated plank  running  along  the  walls.     A 


8  JESUS   CHRIST 

few  mats  and  cushions  upon  which  people 
squat  after  the  oriental  fashion,  and  a 
great  chest,  complete  the  furniture.  Dur- 
ing the  warm  season  this  chest  holds  the 
rugs  and  blankets.  Besides  these  articles 
Joseph  and  Mary  possess  a  lamp,  a  bushel, 
a  broom,  and  a  mill.  The  lamp  is  very 
tall,  and  stands  on  the  floor.  It  is  made  of 
clay,  has  two  or  three  wicks,  and  burns 
oil.  The  bushel  serves  as  a  measure,  a 
drawer,  and  a  bag.  Turned  bottom  up- 
ward on  the  floor,  it  takes  the  place  of  the 
table  which  is  not  there.  Sometimes  they 
place  the  lamp  upon  it  when  they  wish  to 
raise  the  light  and  illuminate  the  whole 
room. 

As  for  the  mill,  it  is  for  hand  use ;  and 
every  morning  Mary,  with  the  help  of  one 
of  her  daughters,  must  turn  the  crank  and 
grind  the  grain  needed  for  the  day's 
bread. 

It  is  noon,  the  hour  of  the  principal 
meal.  Before  sitting  down  to  table,  the 
whole  family  wash  their  hands.  This 
ablution  has  a  religious  character,  and  it 
would  be  more  exact  to  say  they  purify 
their  hands.  At  a  later  day  Jesus  will 
declare  these  purifications  useless,  and  will 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  9 

no  longer  practise  theui ;  but  he  is  now  a 
child :  he  submits  to  the  regulations  of  his 
pious  parents,  which  are  those  of  the  Law 
of  his  people. 

Before  squatting  down  in  oriental 
fashion,  Joseph  gives  thanks,  and  Jesus, 
the  eldest  child,  repeats  a  part  of  his 
prayer.  At  the  close  of  the  meal  another 
thanksgiving  will  be  pronounced. 

Each  one  has  a  loaf  before  him.  It  is 
a  sort  of  flat  round  cake  which  serves  also 
as  plate,  and  on  which  each  puts  his 
portion  of  butter  or  of  cheese.  Further- 
more, there  is  a  dish  on  the  bottom  of  the 
upturned  bushel;  and  each  one  at  table, 
after  having  broken  his  bread,  dips  his 
morsel  in  the  dish  before  eating. 

What  is  there  in  this  dish?  Usually 
curdled  milk  or  a  porridge  made  of  barley 
or  wheat.  In  addition  to  butter  and 
cheese  there  are  also  eggs,  honey,  and 
parched  grain.  These  form  the  ordinary 
food  of  the  carpenter's  family.  Meat  is 
scarce  and  dear.  If  any  is  bought  on 
feast  days,  it  is  beef,  mutton,  or  kid.  In 
summer  a  few  grapes  and  figs  complete  the 
dinner.  Sometimes,  in  the  season,  there 
are  locusts.     If  so,  the  children  must  have 


10  JESUS    CHRIST 

gathered  them.  They  are  prepared  by 
reducing  the  body  to  a  powder,  which  is 
mingled  with  flour  to  make  a  sort  of  cake, 
very  much  appreciated. 

In  the  goblet,  which  is  passed  around 
the  circle,  each  one  drinking  in  turn, 
there  is  sometimes  water  mingled  with 
wine ;  but  the  ordinary  drink  of  the  family 
is  a  sort  of  small  beer  made  of  wheat  and 
fruits,  and  called  shechar. 

The  meal  ended,  each  resumes  his  work 
until  evening,  when  another  meal,  even 
more  frugal  than  the  earlier  one,  again 
brings  the   family  together. 

They  were  poor  in  the  house  of  the 
Nazareth  carpenter,  but  they  did  not  suffer 
from  poverty,  for  among  Jews  of  that 
time  the  word  "  poverty  "  was  never  synony- 
mous with  "indigence"  or  "want."  The 
requirements  of  life  were  very  few,  and 
needs  created  by  modern  civilization  were 
unknown.  Such  conveniences  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  did  not  exist,  and  Joseph, 
Mary,  and  their  children  suffered  no  priva- 
tion. Things  which  we  could  with  diffi- 
culty do  without,  comforts  which  have 
become  necessary  to  us,  were  not  in  the 
least   missed    by   the   carpenter    and    his 


BEFORE  ffIS  MINISTRY  H 

family,  for  they  knew  nothing  about  them 
and  felt  no  need  of  them. 

What  were  the  first  religious  notions 
received  by  the  child  Jesus  ?  Very  early 
he  knew  by  heart  certain  verses  of  the 
Bible.  As  soon  as  he  began  to  speak,  his 
mother  made  a  point  of  repeating  to  him 
verses  of  the  Law;  and  first  of  all  she 
taught  him  those  which  proclaim  the  unity 
of  God  and  the  election  of  Israel :  "  Hear, 
O  Israel,  the  Lord  thy  God  is  One  Lord. 
Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all 
thy  might."!  "The  Lord  did  not  set  his 
love  upon  you  nor  choose  you  because 
ye  were  more  in  number  than  any  people, 
for  ye  were  the  fewest  of  all  peoples ;  but 
because  the  Lord  lovethyou."^  When  the 
child  could  repeat  these  two  verses  per- 
fectly, his  mother  taught  him  others. 
After  a  while  she  put  into  his  hands  strips 
of  parchment  upon  which  were  written 
the  words  which  he  knew  by  heart.  Thus 
he  finally  came  to  know  his  letters,  and, 
repeating  these  verses  often  with  his  little 
playmates,  he  soon  learned  to  read. 

^  Deut.  vi.  4,  5. 
2  Deut.  Tii.  7. 


12  JESUS   CHRIST 

The  day  came  when  his  mother  explained 
to  him  the  meaning  of  the  words  he  was 
repeating.  She  told  him  of  God  and  of 
the  creation.  She  related  to  him  the 
glorious  history  of  the  past,  —  Abraham 
willing  to  offer  up  Isaac;  Jacob  and  the 
ladder  of  light;  Moses  and  the  burning 
bush;  the  coming  up  out  of  Egypt  and 
the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea;  David  and 
his  victories;  Judas  Maccabaeus  and  the 
triumph  of  national  independence.  Jesus 
early  knew  all  these  marvellous  stories  of 
the  Old  Testament.  The  commandments 
of  Jehovah,  his  promises,  his  warnings, 
were  graven  on  his  mind  in  ineffaceable 
characters. 

His  family  was  assuredly  very  pious, 
adhering  closely  to  the  strictest  Judaism, 
for  every  year  his  father  and  mother  made 
part  of  the  little  caravan  of  Nazarenes  who 
went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  celebrate  the 
Passover;  and  James,  the  next  younger 
brother  of  Jesus,  remained  in  manhood, 
even  after  his  conversion  to  Christianity,  a 
rigid  and  austere  Jew,  practising  a  narrow 
and  minute  piety,  careful  to  omit  no  rite  and 
to  observe  all  the  purifications.  Without 
question  this  was  due  to  impressions   re- 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  13 

ceived  in  infancy  in  a  home  which  was  very 
orthodox  and  closely  bound  up  in  the 
national  hopes.  The  piety  of  Jesus  was 
no  doubt  of  another  character;  and  there- 
fore it  early  began  to  distress  his  mother 
and  brothers.  The  day  was  to  come  when 
they  would  try  to  hold  him  back,  to  keep 
him  with  them ;  would  even  go  so  far  as  to 
suspect  him  of  insanity.  From  all  this  we 
may  conclude  with  certainty  that  the  most 
scrupulous  attachment  to  pharisaical  ob- 
servances, and  an  entire  submission  to  all 
the  prescriptions  of  the  Law,  were  the 
fixed  rule  of  daily  life  in  the  carpenter's 
house. 

When  Jesus  was  six  years  old,  his  parents 
sent  him  to  school.  That  of  Nazareth 
was  held  in  the  synagogue,  the  audience- 
room  serving  for  schoolroom  during  the 
week.i  The  schoolmaster  was  the  per- 
sonage who  had  charge  of  the  building  and 
of  the  manuscripts  of  the  Sacred  Books, 
and  watched  over  the  orderly  conduct  of 
the  service  on  the  Sabbath  days. 

^  This  was  the  custom  in  the  villages.  In  cities 
and  large  towns  (and  perhaps  Nazareth  was  of  this 
number)  the  school  probably  occupied  a  building 
contiguous  to  the  synagogue. 


14  JESUS   CHRIST 

Jesus  attended  this  school  until  he  was 
ten  or  twelve  years  old.  At  this  age  he 
knew  how  to  read,  write,  and  calculate. 
He  then  became  a  "Son  of  the  Com- 
mandment;" that  is,  he  began  to  be  sub- 
ject to  the  discipline  of  the  Law.  Every 
morning  and  evening  he  must  recite  the 
Shema,^  a  few  verses  of  which  he  had 
known  since  infancy;  for  every  morning 
and  night,  over  the  whole  extent  of  Pales- 
tinian territory,  the  Jews  hastily  muttered 
these  verses  as  one  tells  one's  beads. 
Jesus  never  approved  of  these  "  vain  repe- 
titions." The  day  came  when  he  formally 
condemned  them.  But  at  twelve  years  of 
age  he  recited  the  Shema  like  every  one 
else;  and  these  nineteen  verses  certainly 
became  the  subject  of  his  first  religious 
reflections. 

To  this  must  be  added  what  he  learned 
on  Saturdays  (the  Sabbath)  at  a  synagogue 
service  designed  especially  for  childi-en. 
It  was  a  sort  of  catechizing  to  which  Mary 
had  been  especially  advised  to  send  him 
regularly.     Therefore,  next  to  his  mother, 

^  The  Shema  contains  nineteen  verses,  Deut.  vi.  4-9 ; 
xi.  13-21 ;  Num.  xv.  37-41.  The  name  comes  from  the 
first  word,  Shema,  which  means  Hear. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  15 

it  was  the  schoolmaster  who  first  initiated 
him  in  the  reading  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Thus  passed  the  early  years  of  Jesus. 
What  impressions  must  have  been  made 
upon  his  soul  by  his  home,  his  parents,  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  the  family  life  in 
which  he  had  been  so  happy !  How  often 
he  must  have  recalled  them  to  mind  at  a 
later  time :  the  paternal  home,  the  "  father 
who  gave  good  things  to  his  children,  "^ 
the  little  village  boys  with  whom  he  had 
played  at  marriages  and  burials,  when  he 
amused  himself  with  them  in  imitating 
the  village  wedding-dances  or  in  uttering 
the  lamentations  of  the  hired  mourners 
who  attended  funeral  services,  —  what 
sweet  and  peaceful  memories  of  the  time 
when  he  had  only  to  let  himself  be  loved ! 

Such  was  the  placid  and  humble  cliild- 
hood  of  him  who  holds  the  first  place  in 
the  liistory  of  humanity,  and  who  has  exer- 
cised a  decisive  influence  upon  the  destinies 
of  the  world ;  of  him  whose  work  is,  without 
contradiction,  the  most  remarkable  which 
the  annals  of  the  past  have  bequeathed  to 
our  meditation ;  and  whose  life  divides  the 
history  of  our  race  into  two  parts  which 
nothing  can  ever  blend  together. 

1  Matt.  vii.  11. 


II 

EARLY   BELIEFS 


CHAPTER   II 

EARLY   BELIEFS 

TpHE  child  believes  upon  authority;  he 
accepts  all  that  his  teachers  tell 
him.  He  is  surprised  at  nothing,  and 
never  dreams  of  raising  a  doubt  concern- 
ing such  affirmations  as  are  given  him  as 
indisputable  truths.  At  a  later  time  he 
examines  his  early  beliefs;  perhaps  he 
abandons  them,  and  if  he  keeps  them  it 
is  as  changed  into  deliberate  personal  con- 
victions; but  he  must  have  begun  with 
unquestioning  submission,  and  if  he  was 
brought  up  by  believing  parents  he  ac- 
cepted all  their  religious  teachings,  and 
clung  to  them  in  all  good  faith. 

This  Avas  certainly  the  case  with  Jesus. 
Brought  up  in  a  pious  family,  he  believed 
what  every  young  Israelite  of  that  time 
believed.  The  faith  of  his  childhood, 
simple,  artless,  confident,  was  that  of 
Joseph  and  Mary,  that  of  the  pious  circles 


20  JESUS   CHRIST 

of  Galilee  at  that  time.  It  is  made  known 
to  us  by  the  Jewish  books  of  that  epoch, 
and  by  some  of  the  representative  char- 
acters whose  memory  has  been  preserved 
to  us. 

We  can  know  then  with  sufficient  accu- 
racy what  Jesus  believed  in  his  child- 
hood, and  what  were  the  beliefs  which  he 
received  on  authority  and  for  which  he 
was  not  in  the  slightest  degree  respon- 
sible. 

What  did  Joseph  and  Mary  teach  their 
son  when  he  began  to  grow  up  and  under- 
stand things  ? 

The  two  eldest,  Jesus  and  James,  must 
have  received  the  same  religious  educa- 
tion; and  that  which  later  James  became 
and  remained  until  the  end  of  his  life  may 
show  us  what  that  education  was,  for  his 
nature  was  essentially  conservative.  We 
have  said  that  even  after  becoming  a  Chris- 
tian he  retained  an  ineffaceable  stamp  of 
Judaism.  In  many  respects  he  remained 
what  he  had  always  been.  All  his  life 
James  energetically  defended  the  Jewish 
law  and  privileges.  He  was  very  faithful  to 
the  temple  and  the  synagogue;  he  never 
ceased  to  expect  the  glorious  Messiah  of  the 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  21 

Pharisees,  and  was  in  his  own  person  an 
ascetic,  half  Ebionite,  half  Essene.  Legend 
adds  to  these  authentic  characteristics  the 
statements  that  he  was  holy  before  his 
birth;  that  he  never  drank  wine  nor  fer- 
mented liquor,  never  shaved  his  head  nor 
anointed  himself  with  oil;  and  that  he 
passed  his  time  always  on  his  knees  in 
prayer,  —  a  fancy  picture,  a  few  lines  of 
which  may  be  historic ;  nor  is  it  assuming 
too  much  to  draw  from  it  the  conclusion 
at  which  we  have  already  arrived,  that  the 
family  of  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  was  in 
all  probability  one  of  profound  and  ardent 
piety. 

But  can  we  create  anew  the  atmosphere 
of  this  family  life  in  which  Jesus  lived,  at 
that  age  when  one  accepts  everything  and 
recoils  from  nothing?  Can  we  say  what 
was  the  current  of  ideas  and  facts,  of 
beliefs  and  practices,  in  which  James  per- 
mitted himself  to  be  carried  along,  and 
against  which  Jesus  was  one  day  to 
struggle  ? 

Two  facts  govern  here,  —  the  expectation 
of  a  glorious  Messiah,  and  the  doctrine 
that  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law  justified  man 
before   God.     Joseph    and    Mary    taught 


22  JESUS   CHRIST 

Jesus  that  he  must  be  very  scrupulous  in 
the  practice  of  the  rites,  and  very  faithful 
in  looking  for  "the  Consolation  of  Israel." 

Now,  these  two  beliefs  were  precisely 
those  upon  which  Jesus  at  a  later  time 
struck  out  new  and  entirely  original  ideas, 
—  ideas  which  became  the  very  gromid 
of  the  opposition  which  he  aroused  and 
its  reason  for  being. 

Underlying  these  beliefs,  if  one  may  so 
speak,  in  the  very  depths  of  the  child's 
soul,  there  was  a  primitive  religious  teach- 
ing, common  to  all  Jews  of  his  time  with- 
out exception,  which  Mary  must  have 
given  to  her  son  somewhat  on  this  wise. 
She  taught  him,  first  of  all,  to  believe  in  a 
single  God  who  is  the  only  true  God, 
creator  of  heaven  and  earth;  who  chose 
the  people  Israel  to  be  his  own  preferred 
people,  and  who  would  one  day  —  a  day 
not  far  off  —  give  Israel  the  supremacy 
over  all  nations.  These  were  certainly 
the  first  religious  notions  which  the  child 
received. 

That  his  people  were  the  chosen  people 
there  was  no  room  to  doubt,  for  there  Avas 
a  book  which  said  so,  —  the  Torah,  dictated 
by  God   to  Moses   from  the  first  word  to 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  23 

the  last.  More  than  that,  Jerusalem 
was  the  centre  of  the  world,  and  all 
other  countries  surrounded  Palestine, 
which  showed  that  Palestine  was  the 
"Holy  Land,"  and  that  the  Jews  were 
destined  to  rule  over  all  peoples. 

The  earth  was  a  very  large  flat  disk, 
around  which  revolved  the  sun,  the  moon, 
and  the  stars,  and  God  was  up  above  the 
sky;  that  is,  in  heaven,  beyond  the  blue 
surface  which  we  see  over  our  heads. 
From  thence  he  ruled  the  world  and  its 
inhabitants. 

The  child  learned  also  that  the  world  was 
in  two  parts,  —  the  land  of  Israel  and  that 
wliich  was  not  the  land  of  Israel.  Men 
were  divided  into  two  classes,  —  Jev/s  and 
Gentiles ;  that  is,  those  who  are  "  within  " 
and  those  who  are  "without."  Beyond 
the  land  occupied  by  the  Gentiles,  the 
child  was  told,  lay  the  sea,  whose  vast 
extent  no  one  knew. 

In  heaven  were  all  the  righteous  people 
who  had  hitherto  lived.  Abraham  was 
the  highest  of  them  all.  An  everlasting 
feast  was  carried  on,  and  the  best  people 
were  at  the  table,  "lying  in  Abraham's 
bosom." 


24  JESUS   CHRIST 

Besides  this,  in  heaven  was  the  throne 
of  God,  surrounded  by  hundreds  of  legions 
of  angels,  each  in  his  own  rank.  The  high- 
est, those  who  were  nearest  the  Almighty, 
were  the  archangels.  All  of  them  sang 
the  praises  of  God.  Some  of  them  were 
also  his  messengers  to  man ;  for  God,  who 
dwelt  in  light  inaccessible,  could  enter 
into  relations  with  a  sinful  world  only  by 
means  of  intermediaries.  Now  and  again 
men  saw  angels,  who  appeared  to  them 
sometimes  in  dreams,  sometimes  when 
they  were  awake.  They  watched  over  and 
protected  good  people,  and  carried  their 
prayers  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  were 
therefore  true  guardian  angels.  Every 
one  had  his  own,  who  made  known  to 
God  the  dangers  which  tlireatened  him 
over  whom  he  was  watching,  and  im- 
plored for  him  divine  aid.  When  a  good 
man  died,  angels  came  and  carried  him 
to  heaven.  If  his  piety  had  been  great, 
he  was  laid  in  the  very  bosom  of  Abraham, 
and  shared  with  him  the  everlasting  feast. 
There  were  angels  who  remained  always 
in  heaven  to  contemplate  the  glory  of 
God  or  pray  for  men.  Angels  had  played 
an  important  part  in   the  history  of   the 


BEFORE  n/S   MINISTRY  25 

chosen  people.  It  was  they  who  built  the 
ark  and  gave  the  Law  to  Moses,  and  it  was 
they  who  always  guarded  the  Temple 
treasure.  More  than  that,  every  natural 
force  had  its  angel,  —  the  rain,  the  dew, 
the  wind,  the  fog,  the  hail,  the  fire,  etc. 
Every  one  was  sure  of  all  tliis.  Only  the 
Sadducees  did  not  believe  in  angels. 

There  was  also  another  invisible  world, 
called  the  Kingdom  of  Darkness,  or  King- 
dom of  Satan.  This  was  the  name  of  its 
prince,  who  ruled  with  the  permission  of 
God.  This  Satan,  who  was  also  called 
Asmodeus,  Belial,  Beelzebub,  Devil,  was 
a  very  real  and  living  personage,  who 
tormented  men  and  led  them  into  evil. 
He  had  innumerable  hosts  of  demons 
under  his  orders,  invisible  and  maleficent 
spirits,  by  whom  people  were  constantly 
surrounded.  For  this  reason  the  de- 
mons were  sometimes  called  "the  pow- 
ers of  the  air."  They  usually  wandered 
in  deserts  and  uninhabited  places,  espe- 
cially such  as  were  arid. 

These  demons  were  the  cause  of  nearly 
all  disease.  They  also  made  men  fall  into 
sin.  And  indeed  there  was  a  very  close 
relation  between  moral  evil  and  physical 


26  JESUS   C HEIST 

evil.  It  sometimes  happened  that  a  demon, 
or  even  the  chief  of  demons,  Satan,  took 
entire  possession  of  a  person,  body  and 
souL  The  wretched  man  might  even  be 
the  prey  of  several  demons  at  the  same 
time.  It  was  always  possible  to  expel 
them.  God  had  given  to  pious  men, 
especially  to  Doctors  and  Rabbis,  the  power 
to  cast  out  demons.  They  alone  knew 
how  to  heal;  and  for  this  they  had 
their  well-defined  procedure,  —  laying  on 
of  hands,  prayers,  fasts,  etc.  Each  one 
had  his  own,  and  for  this  reason  the  Rabbis 
were  to  be  held  in  the  greatest  respect. 

These  healings  were  called  "signs;" 
that  is,  marks  of  the  presence  of  a  supe- 
rior power  which  was  beneficent,  or  rather 
of  the  one  superior  beneficent  power,  that 
of  God.  There  were  also  "  signs  "  which 
were  the  tokens  of  the  presence  of  a  supe- 
rior evil-working  power,  or  rather  of  the 
one  superior  evil-working  power,  that  of 
the  Devil. 

These  divers  potencies,  these  invisible 
"powers,"  unceasingly  made  their  presence 
known,  and  therefore  nothing  extraordi- 
nary, unfamiliar,  extravagant,  was  impos- 
sible.    Many  had  seen  these  signs,  these 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  27 

miracles,  and  everybody  desired  to  see 
them.  "  The  Jews  ask  for  signs ;  "  ^  and 
Joseph  and  Mary,  like  every  one  else,  cer- 
tainly believed  in  the  supernatural  under 
the  strangest  forms,  —  for  example,  inspirits 
which  had  never  had  bodies,  or  in  angels 
of  fire,  of  water  and  of  wind,  that  is,  in  an 
invisible  world  which  in  all  places  and  at 
all  times  made  known  its  presence  and  its 
activities. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  at  this  day  to  picture 
to  ourselves  the  exact  state  of  mind  which 
holds  beliefs  of  this  kind.  If,  for  example, 
we  are  told  of  a  sudden  cure  taking  place 
in  our  own  time,  however  surprising  it 
may  be,  we  always  explain  it  by  the  action 
of  natural  forces,  known  or  unknown.  It 
is  nature  which  has  acted;  this  we  do  not 
for  an  instant  doubt.  If  any  one  told  us 
that  a  resurrection  from  the  dead  had 
taken  place  among  our  contemporaries, 
even  if  we  had  seen  it  ourselves,  we  should 
immediately  explain  it  either  by  a  lethargic 
slumber  or  in  some  other  way;  but  even 
if  we  could  not  explain  it,  we  should  not 
for  a  moment  admit  that  a  true  resurrection 
had  taken  place  in  our  own  time,  —  that  is 

1  1  Cor.  i.  22. 


28  JESUS   CHRIST 

to  say,  that  life  had  returned  to  a  body 
actually  dead.  In  short,  at  the  present 
day  we  always,  without  hesitation,  seek 
for  a  natural  explanation  of  everything 
that  seems  to  be  a  miracle;  and  if  we  do 
not  find  such  an  explanation,  we  do  not 
affirm  with  any  less  certainty  that  it  does 
exist. 

In  the  time  when  Jesus  was  growing  up 
it  was  entirely  the  other  way.  Though 
one  might  not  at  once  admit,  and  find  it 
perfectly  easy  to  admit,  the  most  surprising 
miracle,  —  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  per- 
son, for  example,  —  asking  for  proofs  of 
the  fact,  at  least  no  one  was  very  exacting 
as  to  the  proof,  for  there  was  nothing  im- 
possible in  the  prodigy  itself.  Everything 
was  possible,  absolutely  everything,  no  mat- 
ter what.  In  our  day  we  declare  every- 
thing that  is  out  of  the  natural  order  of 
things  to  be  a  jjriori  impossible.  Perhaps 
we  are  wrong;  perhaps  we  are  too  much 
carried  away  with  the  notion  of  the  immu- 
tability of  natural  laws,  and  it  is  highly 
possible  that  the  future  may  bring  a  cor- 
rective to  the  inflexible  rigor  with  which 
we  reject  all  that  does  not  appear  to  us  to 
be  conformable  to  the  known  order  of  the 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  29 

universe.  But  for  the  time,  thus  it  is; 
and  therefore  we  find  some  difficulty  in 
representing  to  ourselves  the  effect  which 
a  miracle  had  upon  the  mind  of  an  inhabi- 
tant of  Palestine  in  the  first  century.  The 
science  of  medicine  did  not  exist.  Empiri- 
cal remedies  were  the  only  ones  employed, 
and  every  one  had  his  own.  Resurrection 
from  the  dead  was  held  to  be  a  perfectly 
possible  and  even  a  very  probable  tiling. 

The  firm  persuasion  of  the  speedy 
appearance  of  the  Messiah  belonged  to  this 
order  of  supernatural  beliefs.  Without 
the  slightest  doubt  the  parents  of  Jesus 
had  told  their  son  that  there  would  be  in 
the  very  near  future  a  sudden  revolution 
which  would  be  marked  by  the  appearance 
of  a  Deliverer.  The  present  was  a  time 
of  great  calamity.  The  nation  was  in 
humiliation,  and  under  the  Roman  yoke 
the  people  felt  severely  the  loss  of  that 
Uberty  which  the  Maccabees  had  formerly 
conquered  for  them. 

The  great  events  of  that  glorious  epoch 
were  certainly  often  related  to  the  child 
Jesus,  and  contrasted  with  the  present  sad 
condition.  Nothing  more  was  to  be  ex- 
pected of  man,  but  everj^thing  might  be 


30  JESUS   CHRIST 

expected  of  God.  They  Avere  living  in 
the  last  times;  and  the  words  Maran 
atha^^  which  Paul  has  preserved  in  their 
original  form,  must  often  have  been 
sounded  in  the  child's  ears. 

What  if  the  Messiah  is  already  born? 
they  would  say.  For  he  is  to  remain 
hidden  until  the  day  of  his  manifestation. 
However,  there  will  be  signs  at  the  last 
moment.  Elias  will  first  appear;  then 
will  come  the  Messiah,  who  will  be  only 
a  man,  but  a  superior  man,  an  ideal  being, 
the  Anointed  of  the  Lord,  the  King  of 
Israel.  He  will  be  a  prophet,  and  will 
commit  no  sin.  His  days  will  be  days  of 
consolation.  While  awaiting  him,  we  must 
lead  a  pious  and  austere  life,  with  strict 
attention  to  the  Pharisaic  observances. 

When  the  world  to  come  should  begin, 
the  good  would  have  a  new  body,  and  the 
wicked  would  be  eternally  punished.  Jeru- 
salem, which  would  have  become  the  capi- 
tal of  the  world,  would  be  all  of  gold, 
cypress,  and  cedar.  A  perpetual  Sabbath 
would  be  celebrated  in  the  Temple,  and  the 
kings  of  the  earth  would  prostrate  them- 
selves before  the  Jews. 

1  "  The  Lord  is  at  hand."     1  Cor.  xvi.  22. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  31 

This  era  of  prosperity  would  be  estab- 
lished only  after  a  series  of  terrible  woes, 
which  would  form  the  transition  between 
"the  present  age  "  and  "the  age  to  come." 
For  this  reason  the  humble  folk,  the  vil- 
lagers, looked  forward  with  great  fear  to 
the  coming  of  the  Messianic  era.  The 
fiery-tongued  Pharisaic  preachers  used  to 
come  and  tell  them  of  frightful  calamities, 
the  conflict  between  Gog  and  Magog, 
famines,  wars,  earthquakes.  "But,"  they 
would  add,  and  these  words  brought  com- 
fort again  to  the  suffering  and  the  poor, 
"after  that,  righteousness  will  reign. 
God,  who  has  laid  the  burden  of  life  upon 
the  lowly,  cannot  have  done  it  without 
intending  to  make  compensation."  Let 
them  observe  the  Law  and  the  traditions ; 
they  would  thus  acquire  merits  which 
would  confer  upon  them  rights  before 
God,  and  then  the  last  should  be  first. 
And  the  humble  folk  would  resume  their 
tasks  with  patience  after  this  glimpse  of 
future  triumph,  this  vision  of  the  eternal 
Jerusalem.! 

^  Here  we  simply  set  forth  the  current  ideas  of  the 
populace  concerning  the  expected  Messiah.  Farther 
on,  in  the  chapter  entitled  "  Studies  and  Reading,"  we 


32  JESUS  CHRIST 

To  learn  to  obey  tlie  Law  one  must 
study  it.  But  the  Law  was  not  the  only 
divine  book.  All  the  writings  bequeathed 
by  the  past  were  such;  and  one  should 
read  the  history  of  the  nation,  and  meditate 
upon  the  prophecies  in  the  volume  entitled 
"The  Prophets."  There  were,  besides, 
other  books  very  important  for  those  to 
read  who  wish  to  be  informed  concern- 
ing "that  which  is  soon  to  come  to  pass." 
Finally,  the  traditions  of  the  fathers  were 
themselves  divinely  inspired.  But  the 
Law  Avas  before  all  the  others.  To  expect 
the  Messiah  and  practise  the  Law,  —  here 
in  two  words  was  the  whole  duty  of  the 
believing  Jew. 

The  practice  of  the  Law  was  essential 
to   justification   before   God.     The   moral 

shall  give  a  fuller  account  of  the  Messianic  ideas  of 
the  Jews  of  that  period,  according  to  their  sacred 
books,  and  we  shall  again  return  to  the  subject  in  the 
chapter  entitled  "  The  Messianic  Ideal  of  Jesus  at 
Thirty  Years  of  Age."  These  distinctions  are  essen- 
tial to  the  understanding  of  the  development  of  Jesus' 
ideas  on  this  important  subject;  for  there  was  in  his 
experience,  first,  his  childish  beliefs,  the  artless  notions 
prevalent  among  the  people ;  second,  what  his  own 
reading  taught  him  ;  and  finally,  the  notions  which  he 
received  at  thirty  years  of  age,  when  he  became  con- 
vinced that  he  was  himself  the  expected  Messiah. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  33 

life  inhered  solely  in  legal  prescriptions. 
To  love  one's  neighbor  was  no  doubt 
important;  but  it  was  precisely  as  impor- 
tant to  give  the  tithe  of  one's  harvest,  to 
abstain  from  eating  pork,  and  not  take 
more  than  the  permitted  number  of  steps 
on  the  Sabbath  day. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  Jesus 
must  from  the  first  have  felt  the  need  of 
recoil  from  this  position;  and  the  breath  of 
resistance  with  which  from  the  first  day 
his  teacliings  were  inspired  had  perhaps  its 
origin  in  the  narrow  and  petty  character  of 
the  prescriptions  to  which  he  had  sub- 
mitted in  his  early  home,  and  to  which  his 
brother  James  gave  himself  with  the  most 
rigorous  obedience.  For  in  his  parents' 
house  Jesus  must  above  all  things  have 
learned  to  perform  the  rites,  to  recite  the 
Shema,  not  to  omit  a  single  purification, 
to  have  the  sacred  fringes  on  his  mantle 
and  the  phylacteries  on  his  arms.  It  is 
extremely  probable  that  Joseph  and  Mary 
submitted,  though  certainly  with  true 
piety  and  profoundly  religious  feeling,  to 
all  the  minutiae  of  Pharisaic  devotion. 
The  Pharisees  had  regulated  everything, 
and  every  one  knew  what  was  his  duty  in 
3 


34  JESUS  CHRIST 

the  matter  of  walking,  standing  still, 
working,  resting,  eating,  sleeping,  jour- 
neying. 

We  picture  to  ourselves  Joseph  and 
Mary  as  two  simple-hearted,  trustful 
Galileans,  doing  everything  that  the 
Scribes  ordained  because  they  sincerely 
believed  that  God  himself  had  thus 
ordained.  They  inculcated  in  their  chil- 
dren a  respect  for  religious  belief  and 
practice,  the  regular  and  assiduous  accom- 
plishment of  ritual  duty,  and  submission  in 
all  which  went  beyond  that.  They  believed 
without  discussing  and  without  under- 
standing, waiting  in  faith  for  him  who 
would  "exalt  the  humble  and  cast  down 
the  proud. "  They  belonged  to  the  humble ; 
they  had  been  taught  that  poverty  was  a 
merit,  that  the  lower  classes  alone  were 
true  patriots,  that  wealth  was  a  sin,  and 
that  the  rich  were  impious  because  they 
were  rich. 

Such  was  the  strange  mixture  of  truth 
and  error  with  which  the  soul  of  the  child 
Jesus  was  first  imbued. 

Did  he  at  once  reject  the  error  by  that 
profound  and  unerring  intuition  which  he 
had  all  his  life  ?     We  do  not  doubt  it  for 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  35 

a  moment.  If  he  submitted  to  the  rites 
and  observed  them  as  he  ought  to  have 
done  at  the  age  when  a  child  should  sub- 
mit, he  was,  first  of  all,  obeying  his  God, 
that  Father  whose  "  things  "  always  occu- 
pied him;  and  the  disquietude  into  which 
his  conduct  in  the  Temple  was  one  day  to 
plunge  the  minds  of  his  parents  was  cer- 
tainly only  one  incident  in  the  disquietude 
which  from  that  day  forward  he  was  often 
to  cause  them  by  the  independence  of 
mind  which  he  early  showed  in  the  face  of 
manifest  error.  No  doubt  he  believed  in 
angels  and  demons.  He  believed  that  the 
Law  was  dictated  by  God,  and  he  at  first 
believed  that  the  Messiah  would  reign  on 
earth;  but  he  never  admitted  that  the 
performance  of  rites  makes  man  right  with 
God,  and  that  legal  purifications  can  take 
the  place  of  conversion. 

The  religious  instruction  which  was 
imposed  upon  him  by  authority  awakened 
in  his  soul  a  great  desire,  an  imperative 
need,  to  think  things  out  for  himself,  to 
form  his  own  convictions;  in  a  word,  to 
study  by  every  means  which  God  might 
put  within  his  reach,  and  to  occupy  him- 
self with  ''the  things  of  his  Father,"  wliile 


36  JESUS   CHRIST 

still  remaining  an  obedient  and  respectful 
son.  For  he  felt  something  within  him- 
self which  transcended  and  dominated  all 
this  religion  of  his  parents,  something 
which  protested,  which  understood  what 
they  did  not  understand.  He  felt  him- 
self to  be  superior  to  them.  What  was 
about  to  take  place  in  the  soul  of  this 
child? 


Ill 

JESUS  AT  TWELVE   YEARS 
OF  AGE 


CHAPTER  III 

JESUS   AT   TWELVE   YEARS   OF   AfiE 

'T^HE  man  who  does  a  great  work  and 
strongly  influences  his  time  is  ahvays 
aided  by  circumstances.  He  is  often 
indeed,  as  it  were,  created  by  them. 
Genius,  however  great,  does  not  suffice  to 
him  who  initiates  a  movement ;  it  is  also 
necessary  that  the  moment  when  genius 
can  put  forth  its  full  powers  shall  be  pre- 
cisely the  moment  in  which  he  lives. 
Luther,  born  a  hundred  years  earlier, 
would  not  have  made  the  Reformation, 
and  Napoleon  was  served  by  events  even 
more  than  by  his  own  genius. 

Jesus  was  not  an  exception  to  this  com- 
mon law.  When  he  was  born,  the  time, 
to  use  the  picturesque  expression  of  the 
Gospel,  "was  fulfilled."  Judaism  had 
completed  its  religious  evolution,  and 
Paganism  had  reached  the  limit  of  its 
speculations  and  experiments.     What  the 


40  JESUS   CHRIST 

first  centiuy  needed  was  a  great  social  and 
religious  renovation. 

It  was  inaugurated  by  him  whose  youth 
we  are  trying  to  describe ;  and  among  the 
number  of  the  events  which  taught  him, 
enlightened  him,  hastened  the  efflorescence 
of  his  religious  consciousness,  we  must 
place  in  the  front  rank  the  scene  that  St. 
Luke  has  preserved  to  us,  which  took 
place  when  the  child  was  twelve  years 
old. 

Every  year  Joseph  and  Mary  made  the 
journey  to  the  Holy  City  for  the  Feast  of 
the  Passover,  joining  the  little  group  of 
pious  folk  of  Nazareth  who  held  to  the 
strict  accomplishment  of  the  Law.  To 
take  Jesus  with  them  as  soon  as  he  was 
twelve  years  old  was  considered  by  his 
parents  an  imperative  duty.  The  child 
had  certainly  been  prepared  by  his  mother 
for  the  coming  of  this  great  day.  To 
leave  home ;  to  see  Jerusalem  and  the  Tem- 
ple; to  be  initiated  into  the  sacred  rite  of 
the  Paschal  Lamb,  for  which  his  parents 
had  such  great  respect,  and  for  which  they 
made  such  sacrifices,  —  how  often  had  he 
not  looked  forward  to  it ! 

The  route  which  the  little  caravan  took 


BEFORE  rilS  MINISTRY  41 

was  from  this  time  forth  traversed  by 
Jesus  every  year.  Besides  the  Feast  of 
the  Passover,  that  of  Tabernacles  and  still 
others  must  have  drawn  him  to  Jerusalem ; 
and  therefore  it  comes  to  pass  that  this 
road,  which  still  exists,  is  of  all  the  roads 
of  Palestine  that  which  Jesus  most  often 
traversed. 

On  quitting  Nazareth  the  little  band  of 
worshippers  turned  their  steps  toward  the 
Jordan  valley,  for  they  must  not  pass 
through  Samaria.  They  therefore  went 
toward  the  southeast,  and  after  having 
crossed  the  great  caravan  route  between 
Egypt  and  Damascus,  they  passed  Shunem, 
the  home  of  Elisha's  Shunamite^  and 
Jezreel,^  crossing  the  valley  of  that  name. 
From  Jezreel  the  travellers  went  to  Beth- 
shan,  also  called  Scythopolis.^  This  was 
the  first  stage. 

Nine  hours  of  walking  lay  between  them 
and  Nazareth;  the  Jordan  valley  opened 
before  them.  Here  they  halted,  set  up 
their  tents,  and  passed  the  night.  Scytho- 
polis  was  a  great  foi-tified  town,  filled  with 

1  1  Kings  iv.  8-37. 

2  Now  Zerin. 

3  Now  Beisan. 


42  JESUS   CHRIST 

heathen  buildings,  temples,  theatres,  places 
of  amusement.  It  overlooked  the  river 
from  an  eminence  of  a  hundred  metres. 

On  the  morrow  the  pilgrims,  who  had 
been  most  careful  not  to  enter  the  city  so 
as  not  to  incur  uncleanness  by  contact 
with  heathen,  resumed  their  march,  fol- 
lowing the  valley,  which  was  covered  with 
rich  pasturage  and  crossed  by  many  brooks. 
They  passed  Succoth  ^  and  Archelais,^  an 
entirely  new  city  lately  built  by  Archelaus, 
Herod's  son. 

This  second  stage  was  of  about  twelve 
hours.  Again  the  caravan  camped  in  the 
fields  to  avoid  entering  a  heathen  town. 
On  the  third  day,  in  about  four  hours, 
they  reached  Phasaelis,  also  a  new  town, 
for  it  had  been  founded  by  Herod  the 
Great  in  honor  of  his  son  Phasael.  In  four 
hours  more  they  were  in  Jericho. 

From  Jericho  to  Jerusalem  was  only  a 
six  hours'  journey,  and  this  had  to  be  left 
for  the  fourth  and  last  day.  This  final  stage 
of  the  journey  was  rendered  extremely 
difficult  by  the  stifling  heat,  due  to  the 
depression  of  the  Jordan  valley.     For  the 

1  Now  Sqout. 

2  Now  Kerbet-Makherut. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  43 

valley  is  in  fact  shut  in  between  two 
ranges  of  hills,  and  the  temperature  some- 
times becomes  intolerable.  It  is  true  that 
it  was  now  springtime,  about  Easter,  and 
precisely  the  season  when  the  journey 
could  be  made  under  the  least  unfavorable 
circumstances. 

Let  us  add  that  the  road  was  not  safe. 
From  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and  all  along 
the  Jordan  valley  attacks  of  robbers  were 
frequent,  and  the  men  of  the  Nazareth 
party  were  certainlj-  all  armed.  By  day, 
when  the  travellers  had  nothing  to  fear, 
they  sang  the  Pilgrim  Psalms,^  and  we 
can  picture  to  ourselves  Jesus,  at  the  even- 
ing halt,  helping  Joseph  to  set  up  the 
tent,  while  Mary  prepared  supper,  and  all, 
before  retiring,  reciting  Psalm  cxxi.,  which 
was  the  hymn  for  the  close  of  day,  • — ■ 

I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  to  the  hills, 
From  whence  cometh  my  help. 
My  help  cometh  from  the  Lord, 
Who  made  heaven  and  earth. 
He  will  not  permit  thy  foot  to  stumble  : 
He  who  keepeth  thee  will  not  slumber. 
Behold,  He  will  not  slumber  nor  sleep 
Who  guardeth  Israel. 

1  Psalms  cxx.-cxxxiv. 


44  JESUS   CHRIST 

The  Lord  is  thy  keeper : 

The  Lord  is  thy  shade  on  thy  right  hand. 

The  snn  shall  not  smite  thee  by  day, 

Nor  the  moon  by  night. 

The  Lord  shall  preserve  thee  from  all  evil : 

He  will  preserve  thy  soul. 

The  Lord  shall  preserve  thy  going  out  and 

thy  coming  in 
From  this  time  forth  and  for  evermore. 

Jericho,  the  city  of  palm-trees,  was  a 
charming  city,  the  first  in  which  our 
pilgrims  could  take  a  little  rest,  for  it  was 
the  only  one  not  infested  with  Gentiles. 
The  whole  surrounding  country  was  cov- 
ered with  palm  groves  mingled  with 
gardens  and  cultivated  fields. 

Between  Jericho  and  Jerusalem  they 
first  crossed  a  wide,  arid,  stony  plain, 
somewhat  like  a  desert.  Then  the  road 
ascended  rapidly,  and  forced  its  way  be- 
tween two  almost  vertical  walls  of  gigantic 
rocks.  The  road,  the  remains  of  which  still 
exist  and  are  easy  to  folloAv,  continued  to 
ascend,  and  becoming  steeper  and  steeper 
was  at  times  nothing  less  than  a  veritable 
staircase  hewn  out  of  the  rock.  All  around 
were  bare  and  fissured  heights.  From 
time  to  time,  in  a  yawning  gulf  far  below. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  45 

was  seen  the  torrent  of  Kidron,  silvery  as 
a  thread  of  foam. 

After  this  toilsome  march  by  wild  and 
steep  paths  which  justify  the  expression 
"go  up  to  Jerusalem,"  they  arrived  at 
Bethany,  one  of  the  villages  best  loved  by 
Jesus,  and  the  acquaintance  of  which  he 
made  now  for  the  first  time. 

Jerusalem  was  near  at  hand;  but  it 
could  not  yet  be  seen,  being  hidden  by 
the  Mount  of  Olives.  Just  this  hill  to 
climb,  and  within  ten  minutes  after  leav- 
ing Bethany,  suddenly  the  plain  unrolled, 
revealing  the  splendid  panorama  of  the  city 
crowned  by  its  gigantic  Temple. 

They  from  Nazareth  stood  still  and 
gazed.  There,  fii'st  of  all,  was  the  height  of 
Mount  Zion ;  next  that  of  Moriah,  crowned 
with  the  walls  which  encircle  the  sanctu- 
ary. The  majestic  scene  was  new  to  Jesus. 
The  city  seemed  like  an  almost  impreg- 
nable place.  A  thick  and  high  wall,  fur- 
nished with  sixty  towers,  completely 
surrounded  it.  Within  the  enclosure 
appeared  a  mass  of  flat-roofed  buildings 
closely  huddled  together.  It  was  like  a 
multitude  of  small  cubes  of  white  stone 
standing    out    against    the    blue   sky,    at 


46  JESUS   CHRIST 

unequal  altitudes,  for  the  city  is  built 
upon  hills. 

The  panorama  which  the  child  Jesus  had 
before  his  eyes  was  the  very  one  which  he 
was  to  have  on  Palm  Sunday,  five  days 
before  his  death;  and  he  was  standing  on 
the  spot  where  he  would  then  weep  over 
the  city  and  its  people.  Did  he  think  on 
that  Palm  Sunday  of  his  childish  impres- 
sions, and  of  that  other  day  which  also 
preceded  by  a  very  little  the  Paschal  Feast, 
when,  twenty-one  years  before,  this  sacred 
place  had  appeared  before  him  for  the  first 
time?  At  last  he  was  looking  upon  the 
Temple,  which  he  had  so  often  pictured  to 
himself,  with  its  golden  roof  sparkling  in 
the  sunlight! 

But  they  must  keep  on  to  the  end  of 
their  journey.  The  path  descended  ob- 
liquely. They  went  through  the  valley  of 
Gethsemane,  crossed  the  Kidron,  and  five 
minutes  later  entered  the  city  by  the 
Sheep  Gate,  the  very  gate  by  which  Jesus 
was  to  go  out  on  that  Thursday  night 
which  was  the  last  before  his  death.  They 
were  all  singing  the  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-second  Psalm,  "  Our  feet  shall 
stand  within  thy  gates,   O  Jerusalem!" 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  47 

These  poor  folk  from  Nazareth  must 
have  very  much  resembled  the  pilgrims  of 
the  present  day  who  come  from  the  heart 
of  Russia  or  elsewhere  to  kneel  in  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  whose  simple  and  ardent  piety 
provokes  smiles  among  those  who  are 
surfeited  with  the  emotions  of  the  Holy 
Places.  Their  devotion  certainly  repro- 
duces in  its  essential  features  that  of  the 
Galileans  of  the  early  time. 

The  latter  did  not  lodge  in  the  town,  for 
the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  which  in 
general  was  from  sixty  to  eighty  thousand, 
was  increased  at  feast-times  to  unheard-of, 
incredible  proportions.  They  were  there- 
fore obliged  to  camp  outside  upon  the 
Mount  of  Olives. 

The  garden  of  "the  Oil-press,"  where 
Jesus  was  arrested,  belonged  to  a  friend, 
who  had  there  a  farmstead  serving  as  coun- 
try-house. Who  knows  whether  the  habit 
which  he  formed  later  of  always  passing 
the  night  outside  of  the  city,  upon  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  did  not  date  from  his 
childhood,  springing  from  time-honored 
relations  of  his  family  with  some  inhabi-. 
tant  of  this  place? 

However  this  may  have  been,   Joseph, 


48  JESUS    CHRIST 

Mary,  and  the  child  made  no  delay  in 
going  to  the  Temple.  To  do  this  they 
were  compelled  to  make  a  considerable 
ascent,  for  it  was  situated  on  one  of  the 
hills  enclosed  by  the  wall  of  the  city. 

The  Temple,  above  all  other  things, 
fixed  their  attention.  It  resembled  a  for- 
tress, for  a  formidable  wall  of  defence 
surrounded  it  on  all  sides.  Joseph,  Mary, 
and  the  child,  accompanied,  no  doubt, 
by  other  Nazarenes,  "their  kinsfolk  and 
acquaintance, "  1  entered  the  enclosure  by 
a  great  arched  gate,  and  found  themselves 
in  an  immense  court,  with  porticos  run- 
ning around  the  inner  side  of  the  walls. 

In  the  midst  Jesus  saw  venders,  money- 
changers, and  buyers  inveighing  against 
one  another;  for  the  first  time  he  heard 
the  insulting  remarks  of  Sadducees  and 
the  vociferations  of  Pharisees.  Impassible 
Roman  soldiers  were  mounting  guard  just 
as  Turkish  soldiers  do  to-day;  and  all  in 
one  moment  the  child  had  before  his  eyes 

1  Luke  ii.  44.  These  relatives  may  have  been 
Zebedee  and  Salome,  father  and  mother  of  James 
and  John.  We  believe,  although  these  questions  of 
relationship  are  difficult  to  solve,  that  Salome  was 
Mary's  sister,  and  that  James  and  John,  the  sons  of 
Zebedee,  were  cousins-german  of  Jesus. 


BEFORE  ins  MINISTRY  49 

a  view  of  the  profanation  of  the  Holy 
Place,  the  narrowness  and  hatred  of  the 
religious  parties  who  directed  the  nation, 
and  the  oppression  of  the  foreigner  who 
held  it  in  custody  under  a  yoke  of  iron. 
His  religious  and  patriotic  feelings  were 
at  once  excited  and  wounded.  It  was  the 
first  contact  of  Jesus  with  the  priests, 
who  looked  down  upon  the  poor  pilgrims 
coming  to  offer  their  ardent  devotion, — 
Galileans,  who  spoke  with  so  displeasing  an 
accent,  and,  worse  still,  Nazarenes  from 
a  village  out  of  which  nothing  good  could 
come. 

The  pilgrims,  however,  crossed  the  great 
court  without  pausing ;  they  were  in  haste  to 
pass  through  the  Beautiful  Gate,  and  enter 
the  enclosure  into  which  none  but  Israelites 
might  come.  Here  Mary  remained.  It 
was  the  Court  of  the  Women;  they  were 
not  permitted  to  go  farther.  Joseph  and 
Jesus  went  on  into  the  court  called  "Of 
Israel,"  the  place  reserved  for  men.  Be- 
fore them  was  the  Platform  of  the  Bene- 
dictions, from  which  the  priest  blessed  the 
assembled  people.  Behind  it  arose  the. 
smoke  of  the  great  altar  of  sacrifice, 
and,  still  beyond,  the  door  of  the  Holy 
4 


50  JESUS  CHRIST 

Place,  which  only  the  priests  might  enter. 
Father  and  cliild  bowed  themselves  and 
worshipped. 

But  the  pilgrims  had  come  not  merely 
to  see;  they  had  come  to  celebrate  the 
Passover.  Jesus  already  knew  what  fes- 
tival this  was ;  he  knew  every  one  of  the 
details  of  the  solemnity  about  to  take 
place,  and  the  great  memories  which  it 
celebrated  had  long  been  familiar  to  him. 

Joseph's  first  care  was  to  procure  a  lamb 
for  the  sacrifice.  This  was  easy;  they 
were  for  sale  everywhere.  But  the  price 
was  high  for  one  in  his  circumstances.  At 
the  birth  of  Jesus  his  mother  was  able  to 
offer  only  the  turtle-doves  of  the  poor ;  and 
no  doubt  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  had 
been  laying  aside,  for  months  past,  the 
money  necessary  for  the  purchase  of  the 
lamb.  The  animal  chosen,  Joseph  carried 
it  on  his  shoulders  to  the  Temple,  fol- 
lowed by  the  child.  At  the  entrance  of 
the  Court  of  the  Priests  he  handed  it 
over  to  those  who  conducted  the  sacrifice. 
They  took  it  from  him  and  offered  it  upon 
the  altar,  a  blast  of  the  trumpet  giving 
the  signal  for  the  sacrifice. 

We  may  imagine  the  child's  emotion, 


BEFORE   ins  MINISTRY  51 

the  questions  that  he  asked,  and  all  that 
passed  in  his  soul  at  the  sight  of  tliis 
sacrifice. 

The  animal  was  flayed  and  drawn.  Its 
entrails  and  its  fat  Avere  thrown  upon  the 
fire.  Joseph  lifted  up  the  carcass  and  car- 
ried it  away  to  prepare,  with  Mary's  help, 
the  sacred  feast.  The  animal  was  roasted, 
and  not  boiled.  Not  one  of  its  bones  was 
broken,  and  all  that  might  not  be  eaten 
was  to  be  burned  in  the  fire. 

In  earlier  days  it  had  been  the  custom 
to  partake  of  this  feast  standing,  with 
staff  in  hand,  ready  for  departure,  thus  to 
reproduce  in  all  its  details  the  scene  of 
the  departure  from  Egypt  on  the  night  of 
deliverance.  But  this  custom  had  long 
since  fallen  into  disuse.  Every  one  was 
seated,  in  oriental  fashion,  on  cushions  and 
carpets.  The  sacred  feast  was  celebrated 
after  a  ritual  order.  Four  times  the  cup 
made  the  round  of  the  table.  After  the 
first  round  bitter  herbs  were  brought  to  ])e 
eaten  with  the  unleavened  bread.  These 
bitter  herbs,  steeped  in  vinegar,  were  a 
reminder  of  the  sufferings  formerly  endured 
in  Egypt. 

At  this  moment  Jesus,  according  to  cus- 


52  JESUS   CHRIST 

torn,  asked  Joseph  the  meaning  of  all  that 
was  passing  before  his  eyes.  He  repeated 
the  question  twice,  and  his  father  replied 
with  the  story  of  the  exodus  from  Egypt, 
closing  his  narrative  with  the  words :  "  We 
ought  to  praise,  celebrate,  honor,  and  mag- 
nify Him  who  did  these  great  and  marvel- 
lous things  for  our  fathers,  and  led  them 
from  bondage  to  libert}^,  from  sorrow  to 
joy,  from  darkness  to  a  great  light.  Let 
us  then  say  'Hallelujah!  Praise  the 
Lord ! '  "  At  these  words  the  whole  family 
sang  Psalms  cxiii.  and  cxiv.  Then  the 
meal  went  on,  and  after  the  fourth  and 
last  cup  those  present  sang  Psalms  ex  v., 
cxvi.,  cxvii.,  cxviii.     This  was  the  end. 

The  memory  of  this  evening  left  an  in- 
effaceable impression  upon  Jesus'  mind. 
Of  all  the  rites  of  his  people  the  Paschal 
Feast  was  certainly  that  one  to  which  he 
was  the  most  attached.  He  found  a  great 
sweetness  in  celebrating  it  year  after  year 
Avith  those  whom  he  loved;  and  the  even- 
ing before  his  death  he  said  to  his  apostles, 
"With  desire  I  have  desired  to  eat  this 
Passover  with  you  before  I  suffer."  ^ 

The  next  day  was  the  first  and  great 

1  Liike  xxii.  15. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  53 

day  of  the  feast,  which  had  been  begun 
the  evening  before  by  the  Paschal  Feast,  for 
the  Jews  did  not  count  the  day  from  mid- 
night to  midnight,  as  we  do,  but  from  six 
in  the  evening  until  six  in  the  evening  of 
the  next  day.  It  was  not  permitted  to 
work  on  either  of  these  days. 

On  the  next  day  but  one  they  offered  in 
the  Temple  a  sheaf  of  the  new  harvest. 
During  the  seven  days  of  the  festival  every 
one  ate  unleavened  bread.  On  the  last  day 
it  was  still  obligatory  to  be  present.  It  was 
expressly  forbidden  to  depart  from  Jerusa- 
lem before  the  seven  days  were  completed. 

When  all  had  been  done,  Joseph  and 
Mary  set  off  with  the  Nazareth  caravan. 
We  know  what  happened.  "The  boy 
Jesus  tarried  behind  in  Jerusalem;  and 
his  parents  knew  it  not,  but  supposing 
him  to  be  in  the  company,  they  went 
a  day's  journey;  and  they  sought  him 
among  their  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance."^ 

So  it  came  about  that  they  had  gone  as 
far  as  Jericho,  and  perhaps  farther,  with- 
out being  disturbed  by  the  absence  of 
Jesus.  "  When  they  found  him  not,  they, 
retui-ned  to  Jerusalem  seeking  for  him."^ 

^  Luke  ii.  44.  ^  Luke  ii.  45. 


54    JESUS   CHRIST  BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY 

With  hearts  torn  by  anguish  they  there- 
fore retraced  their  steps  up  that  steep, 
dangerous,  rocky  road  which  lies  between 
Jericho  and  Jerusalem,  and  which  they 
had  passed  over  with  Jesus  only  eight  days 
previously. 

"  And  after  three  days  they  found  him 
in  the  Temple,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  the 
doctors,  both  hearing  them  and  asking 
them  questions.  And  all  that  heard  him 
were  astonished  at  his  understanding  and 
his  answers.  And  when  they  saw  him 
they  were  astonished :  and  his  mother  said 
unto  him,  Son,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt 
with  us  ?  Behold,  thy  father  and  I  sought 
thee  sorrowing.  And  he  said  unto  them. 
How  is  it  that  ye  sought  me?  Wist  ye 
not  that  I  must  be  in  the  things  of  my 
Father?  And  they  understood  not  the 
saying  wliich  he  spake  unto  them.  And 
he  went  down  with  them,  and  came  to 
Nazareth,  and  was  subject  unto  them;  and 
his  mother  kept  all  these  sayings  in  her 
heart.  And  Jesus  advanced  in  wisdom 
and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and 
men."i 

1  Luke  ii.  47-52. 


IV 

FIRST  IMPRESSIONS   AND 
EXPERIENCES 


CHAPTER  IV 

FIRST  IMPRESSIONS   AND   EXPERIENCES 

/^N  their  return  to  Nazareth  Jesus  began 
^-^  to  learn  his  trade  under  Joseph's 
direction;  for  he  was  the  eldest,  and  he 
must  toil  to  aid  his  parents  in  bringing  up 
his  younger  brothers  and  sisters.  A  child 
of  twelve  was  at  that  time,  in  the  East, 
as  well  developed,  physically  and  intel- 
lectually, as  a  child  of  fifteen  is  to-day 
in  oui'  western,  modern  world.  Jesus 
would  later  be  called  "the  carpenter's 
son;"i  and  people  would  see  him  accom- 
panying his  father,  sharing  his  severe  toil, 
and  early  learning  to  feel  himself  a  respon- 
sible being. 

After  a  time  Joseph  died;  everything 
leads  us  to  believe  that  it  was  not  long 
after  tliis,  for  he  is  no  longer  spoken  of, 
and  Jesus,  the  carpenter's  son,  becomes 
"the  carpenter. "2 

1  Matt.  xiii.  55.  2  Mark  vi.  3. 


58  JESUS  CHRIST 

He  therefore  went  on  with  the  paternal 
calling,  and  soon  became  the  support  of 
his  mother  and  the  head  of  the  family. 
For  long  years  he  worked  at  this  most 
laborious  of  trades,  being,  no  doubt,  the 
only  carpenter  in  the  village.  He  would 
put  roofs  upon  new  houses  and  mend  the  old 
ones.  Clothed  in  the  humble  garments  of 
the  working-man,  —  a  simple  woollen  tunic, 
and  a  turban  upon  his  head,  — he  went  about 
his  work,  squaring  beams,  wielding  the 
hatchet  and  axe,  directing  the  men  who 
helped  him,  returning  home  at  evening  to 
eat  the  bread  and  hard-boiled  eggs  which 
his  mother  had  prepared  before  taking  from 
the  wall  the  pallet  and  coverlid  in  which 
his  weary  limbs  would  gain  a  few  hours 
of  rest. 

A  few  indications  permit  us  to  divine 
something  of  what  he  was  among  his  own 
people,  in  the  bosom  of  his  family. 

When  in  the  upper  chamber  not  one  of 
his  disciples  was  ^villing  to  wash  the  feet 
of  the  others,  he,  the  Master,  took  upon 
himself  this  humble  office.  From  this  we 
may  conclude  that  readiness  to  serve  and 
to  do  acts  of  service  must  have  been  a 
feature    of    his    character    in    childhood. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  59 

Another  indication  is  his  love  of  medita- 
tion and  prayer.  When  we  see  him,  from 
the  beginning  of  his  public  life,  passing 
entire  nights  in  prayer,  are  we  not  catch- 
ing a  glimpse  of  a  long  habit  ?  Had  not 
prayer  been  in  his  youth  "the  breath  of 
his  soul"? 

A  third  indication  which  forces  itself 
upon  us  is  tolerance,  charity.  In  one  of 
his  first  public  preachings  he  spoke  of  lov- 
ing one's  enemies,  of  pardoning  those  who 
harm  one,  of  giving  without  hoping  to 
receive  again.  Who  will  dare  to  say  that 
these  precepts  were  not  inspired  in  him  by 
the  sweet  and  vivid  memory  of  the  love 
which  he  had  shown  to  every  one  at 
Nazareth  ?  And  finally,  the  solicitude  with 
which  he  concerned  himself  with  his  mother 
in  his  dpng  moments,  and  his  twofold 
utterance,  "Behold  thy  son!"  "Behold 
thy  mother!  "1  speak  plainly  enough  of 
the  tenderness  with  wliich  he  had  always 
surrounded  her. 

Thus    Jesus    increased   in   wisdom  and 

stature,   and     in     favor    with    God    and 

men ;  ^  he  passed  from  childhood  to  youth. 

He  reached   the  age  when   the   attention 

1  John  xix.  27.  ^  Luke  ii.  52. 


60  JESUS   CHRIST 

awakes;  he  put  questions  to  himself;  he 
observed  what  he  saw,  he  reflected  upon 
what  he  heard.  Immediately  after  his  first 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  whatever  may  have 
been  his  manual  labors,  he  began  to  occupy 
himself  with  "the  things  of  his  Father." 
The  Chazzan,^  his  mother,  and  perhaps, 
also,  some  ruler  of  the  synagogue  had, 
until  this  time,  been  his  only  religious 
teachers.  They  no  longer  sufficed  for 
him.  To  occupy  himself  with  "  the  things 
of  his  Father "  must  have  been,  as  his 
attitude  in  Jerusalem  showed,  to  interro- 
gate the  Doctors  and  ask  them  questions. 
From  this  we  conclude  with  certainty 
that  he  studied  the  religious  parties 
of  his  people,  and  that  his  curious  and 
questioning  gaze  took  in  everything  which 
claimed  religious  authority. 

Observation  was  an  important  factor  in 
the  education  of  Jesus.  For  example,  it 
was  to  observation  that  he  owed  his  entire 
practical  theory  of  life.  What  he  had  not 
seen  he  did  not  know.  He  had  not  seen 
great  capitals,  great  empires;  he  certainly 
never  quitted  Palestine,  and  he  had  only 

^  This  was  the  name  given  to  the  functionary  in 
charge  of  the  synagogue  and  of  the  holy  books. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  61 

an  imperfect  notion  of  the  Roman  Empire 
and  the  power  of  "Csesar."  No  doubt,  it 
may  be  said  that  when  he  describes  kings 
as  personages  clothed  in  fine  apparel,  who 
live  in  palaces,  with  many  slaves  to  do 
their  bidding,  going  in  their  behalf  to 
summon  the  people  whom  they  have  invited 
to  dinner,  1  he  used  this  childish  language 
simply  to  put  himself  on  the  level  of  his 
hearers.  None  the  less  is  it  certain  that 
he  had  never  seen  a  king,  and  that  he 
knew  no  other  sovereign  than  the  tetrarch 
Herod  Antipas.  He  therefore  could  speak 
of  the  great  ones  of  earth  only  by  hearsay. 

But  whatever  he  had  seen  he  knew.  He 
had  a  gift  of  penetration,  a  power  and 
keenness  of  vision,  which  were  of  extraor- 
dinary intensity;  and  the  profundity  of 
observation  which  the  least  of  his  parables 
presupposes  is  truly  prodigious.  He  had 
seen  everything  in  Nazareth,  and  was 
unaware  of  nothing  which  went  on  in  that 
village. 

The  habits  of  men  and  of  beasts ;  the 
manner  of  life  of  the  animals  in  the  woods, 
the  fields,  on  the  farms;  the  relations  of 
laborers  and  proprietors ;  the  price  of  vari- 

1  Matt.  xi.  8 ;  xviii.  23 ;  xxii.  2  ff. ;  etc. 


62  JESUS  CHRIST 

ous  commodities ;  the  habits  of  villagers ; 
the  fold  in  which  the  flocks  are  gathered 
by  night ;  the  shepherd  who  seeks  the  stray 
sheep;  the  hen  calling  her  chickens  to  her; 
the  necessity  of  a  careful  choice  of  ground 
for  building ;  the  time  required  for  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed  to  become  a  great  tree; 
the  destiny  of  different  handfuls  of  seed 
cast  by  the  sower,  some  lost  for  divers 
reasons,  the  rest  dying  in  good  ground  in 
order  to  live  again;  the  making  of  bread; 
the  difference  between  old  wine  and  new; 
the  way  to  mend  clothes,  and  the  impor- 
tance of  washing  the  inside  as  well  as  the 
outside  of  a  dish,  —  he  was  familiar  with 
them  all,  and  nothing  in  daily  life  was 
foreign  to  him. 

He  carried  this  gift  of  observation  and 
of  learning  by  observation,  above  all  things, 
to  the  religious  customs  which  prevailed 
around  him.  He  certainly  never  attended 
the  schools  of  the  rabbis  in  Jerusalem, 
that  of  Hillel  or  that  of  Shammai.  He 
was  never  seen  among  their  pupils.  He 
was  a  carpenter.  The  people  of  Nazareth 
knew  him  as  such;  and  later,  when  men 
heard  him  speak,  they  marvelled  precisely 
because  he  knew  so  many  things  and  had 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  63 

SO  much  wisdom,  though  he  was  only  "  the 
carpenter." 

But  there  is  a  long  way  from  these  facts 
to  the  conclusion  that  Jesus  had  not  stud- 
ied. It  is  certain  to  us  that  from  his 
tenth  to  his  fifteenth  year  he  studied,  in 
the  school  at  Nazareth,  the  traditional  law 
and  the  minute  regulations  of  Israelitish 
life.  He  was  too  well  acquainted  with 
them  for  anything  else  to  have  been  pos- 
sible ;  and,  besides,  every  yoimg  man  who 
intended  to  sound  these  things  even  for  a 
little  way  carried  on  such  studies.  No 
doubt  Jesus  possessed  neither  parchments 
nor  diplomas;  he  was  autodidact,  that  is 
to  say,  self-taught.  But  he  was  a  Rabbi ; 
he  was  called  Rabbi  Jehoshua  Natserieh, 
that  is.  Rabbi  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Now, 
this  was  a  sort  of  profession,  —  a  career 
into  which  it  was  necessary  to  be  initiated 
by  the  acquisition  of  a  certain  amount  of 
knowledge.  Though  any  one  might  call 
himself  Rabbi,  he  could  nevertheless  only 
do  it  in  good  earnest  after  preparing  him- 
self for  his  work. 

A  Rabbi  was  a  personage  whom  people 
consulted,  who  healed  the  sick,  had  dis- 
ciples,   pronounced    aphorisms    and  max- 


64  JESUS  CHRIST 

ims.  What  had  been  the  studies  of 
Jesus?  Certainly  none  which  followed  a 
well-defined  programme,  terminating  in 
examinations  which  confer  a  title  or  a 
degree.  Such  studies,  examinations,  cer- 
tificates, were  the  affair  of  the  Doctors  of 
the  Law.  The  Rabbi  was  more  free;  in 
fact,  he  was  entirely  free.  Rabbi  was  a 
name  given  by  the  people  to  whoever 
took  the  ascendant  over  them  and  rendered 
them  services.  But  one  could  only  gain 
this  ascendant,  and  the  authority  which 
conferred  upon  a  man  the  honor  of  being 
called  Rabbi,  after  having  acquired  a  cer- 
tain knowledge ;  and  this  knowledge  Jesus 
certainly  had.  He  knew  too  well  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  the  parties 
of  his  time  not  to  have  very  narrowly 
observed  these  parties,  and  lived  with 
them  in  closest  contact. 

Every  Sabbath  day  after  the  Synagogue 
the  pious  men  of  the  town  came  together 
to  read  and  meditate,  to  discuss  and  argue. 
Who  will  believe  that  Jesus,  after  his 
fifteenth  year,  never  went  to  this  school  of 
the  Rabbis,  where  they  gave  themselves 
up  to  a  thorough  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
beginning  with  Leviticus,  passing   in   re- 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  65 

view  the  entire  Torah,  and  after  that  the 
Prophets  ?  Jesus  certainly  was  present  at 
the  meetings  of  this  nature  which  must 
have  been  held  in  Nazareth.  The  proof 
that  he  frequented  the  places  where  the 
Scribes  carried  on  their  arguments  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  he  learned  their  method  of 
reasoning. 

It  was  by  arguments  like  theirs  that  he 
demonstrated  that  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead  is  taught  in  the  Pentateuch ;  ^  that  he 
answered  the  Sadducees,  who  denied  a 
future  life,  2  and  asked  how  the  Messiah 
could  be  at  the  same  time  the  Son  of 
David  and  his  Lord.^  The  rabbinical 
exegesis  was  familiar  to  him,  because  he 
learned  it  by  hearing  the  Doctors  expound- 
ing the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  We  may, 
then,  hold  it  as  certain  that  Jesus  prepared 
himself  for  liis  ministry  by  a  very  serious 
and  attentive  study  of  and  acquaintance 
with  the  Judaism  of  the  schools. 

He  did  more ;  he  learned  to  speak.  The 
splendid  habit  of  public  speech  which  he 

1  Matt.  xxii.  31,  32;  Mark  xii.  26,  27;  Luke  xx. 
37,  38. 

2  Matt.  xxii.  23  ff. ;  Mark  xii.  18  ff. ;  Luke  xx.  27  flf. 
8  Matt.  xxii.  45 ;  Mark  xii.  37. 

5 


66  JESUS   CHRIST 

had  from  the  very  first  argues  a  prepara- 
tion which  was  not  a  matter  of  a  day. 
This  preparation  was  so  complete  that 
during  his  ministry  he  always  gave  to  his 
words  the  most  admirably  finished  form, 
so  finished  that  all  trace  of  effort  has  dis- 
appeared. We  can  discover  none;  not 
even  in  his  parables,  the  structure  of  which 
is  so  perfect.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to 
say  here  what  was  the  nature  of  Jesus' 
preparation ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  certain 
that  he  did  prepare  himself.  If  at  a  later 
time  he  was  often  compelled  to  improvise,  it 
is  evident  that  he  had  learned  how  to  do  it. 

Jesus,  then,  like  every  other  man,  had 
made  his  preparation,  —  with  the  aid  of 
circumstances  he  had  created  for  himself 
tests  and  struggles  which  he  must  have 
fought  out.  He  profited  by  all  the  methods 
of  self-instruction  which  God  had  put 
within  his  reach.  His  character,  his  mind, 
his  intelligence,  his  whole  soul  were  in- 
cessantly growing  during  these  eighteen 
years.  He  lent  an  ear  to  the  lessons  given 
by  the  events  of  the  day,  patriotic  or  reli- 
gious; he  became  aware  of  the  hostility  of 
men,  and  was  taught  by  it. 

I  hold  it  also  to  be  highly  probable  that 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  67 

Jesus  passed  some  time  in  Jerusalem  dur- 
ing the  eighteen  years  that  lay  between 
him  and  public  life.  He  must  have  con- 
tinued to  go  up  to  the  Paschal  feasts ;  he 
perhaps  went  to  other  feasts.  That  of 
Tabernacles  was  very  popular,  and  his 
desire  to  learn,  the  ardent  interest  which 
he  felt  in  the  "things  of  his  Father,"  the 
memory  wliich  he  kept  of  his  first  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  his  first  sight  of  the  Temple, 
—  all  lead  me  to  believe  that  his  steps 
were  often  turned  toward  the  holy  city; 
for  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  after 
returning  to  Nazareth,  at  twelve  years  of 
age,  he  never  again  left  it.  But  his  absences- 
were  never  long;  he  never  made  distant 
journeys,  and  Nazareth  was  certainly  his 
constant  place  of  abode.  For  thirty  years 
he  had  before  his  eyes  the  meagre  and  nar- 
row horizon  of  his  own  village.  For  thirty 
years  he  lived  amid  its  cottages,  threshing- 
floors,  wine-presses.  For  thirty  years  he 
looked  upon  those  mountains  whose  most 
minute  outlines  had  been  familiar  to  him 
from  his  tenderest  infancy.  The  features 
of  this  landscape  were  graven  on  his 
memory  in  lines  never  to  be  effaced. 
Here,  among  these  shrubs  and  roses,  he  had 


68  JESUS   CHRIST 

received  his  first  impression  of  the  world, 
and  felt  his  soul  awake  to  a  sympathy  with 
nature  which  had  been  always  growing 
stronger.  In  the  brilliancy  of  the  red  anem- 
ones, which  he  called  lilies,  he  had  seen  the 
resplendent  glory  of  his  Father ;  and  upon 
these  silent  hills  he  had  felt  his  presence 
and  had  passed  long  nights  in  prayer. 

Among  acts  preparatory  to  his  public 
life  we  must  include  prayer,  the  hours 
spent  with  his  Father.  He  knew  how  to 
"close  his  door"  and  "pray  to  the  Father 
who  seeth  in  secret;  "  but  it  was  especially 
upon  the  heights  which  encircle  the  vil- 
•lage  that  he  found  solitude  and  isolation. 
There  is,  perhaps,  not  one  of  the  hills  near 
Nazareth  upon  which  he  has  not  prayed. 
We  have  already  remarked  that  if  during 
his  ministry  he  loved  to  withdraw  to  the 
mountain  and  pass  sometimes  the  whole 
night  there  alone  with  the  Father,  he  cer- 
tainly did  it,  and  often,  during  the  long 
and  fruitful  years  of  his  preparation. 

There  is  one  of  the  heights  overlooking 
the  village  which  must  often  have  attracted 
him.i     From  hence  is  seen  one  of  the  finest 

1  Now  Jebel-es-Sikh,  542  metres  in  height.  Naza- 
reth itself  is  273  metres  above  the  sea,  and  100  metres 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  69 

views  in  all  Palestine,  and  it  is  beyond  all 
doubt  that  Jesus  often  looked  upon  it. 
Tins  height  is  at  the  north ;  it  is  the  most 
elevated  of  the  immediate  environs  of 
Nazareth.  At  Nazareth  the  view  is  very 
much  shut  in ;  but  here,  on  the  contrary, 
the  panorama  is  immense.  At  the  south 
are  the  mountains  of  Samaria,  beyond 
which  may  be  pictured  the  dark  and  unat- 
tractive Judea.  On  the  west  lies  the 
Carmel  range,  the  double  peak  dominating 
Megiddo,  and  in  the  distance,  stretching 
out  to  infinity,  the  blue  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean.  At  the  northward  may 
be  seen  the  mountains  of  Jafed,  melting 
away  into  the  sea ;  and  in  the  farthest  dis- 
tance the  snow  peak  of  great  Hermon. 
Then,  turning  to  the  east,  the  eye  is  fixed 
by  the  rounded  and  graceful  forms  of 
the  mountains  of  the  land  of  Shechem  and 
Mount  Tabor. 

Such  was  the  view  which  Jesus  looked 
upon.  From  that  hill,  on  the  side  toward 
the  sunrise,  after  a  night  of  deep  thought 
and  prayer,  he  would  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the    Jordan  valley,   which    was    later    to 

above  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  At  the  summit  of 
Jebel-es-Sikh  is  found  the  little  Waly  of  Nebi  Ishmael. 


70  JESUS  CHRIST 

be  the  scene  of  his  activity,  and  beyond 
the  river,  Perea  with  its  high  plains ;  while 
all  around  him,  at  his  very  feet,  was  spread 
a  prodigious  wealth  of  rich  vegetation,  and 
lands  of  such  fertility  that  they  were  com- 
pared with  Paradise. 

In  this  nature  Jesus  unceasingly  saw  the 
face  of  his  Father.  He  had  known  this 
Father,  and  loved  him  with  all  his  heart, 
all  his  soul,  all  his  strength,  and  all  his 
thought,  from  the  day  when  his  pious 
mother  taught  him  to  lisp  his  name;  and 
after  having  found  his  Fatherhood  in  the 
Old  Testament,  in  the  marvellous  story  of 
the  deliverances  of  his  people,  he  found  it 
again  on  the  solitary  heights  which  over- 
look Nazareth. 

Descending  from  the  hill,  he  found  it 
again,  everywhere  and  always,  in  that 
nature  which  encompassed  him.  It  re- 
flected the  invisible  world;  it  was  as  if 
transparent,  and  the  serene  and  benevolent 
face  of  the  Father  appeared  to  him  through 
all  things.  The  labors  of  the  country,  the 
habits  of  animals,  the  slow  development 
of  plants,  the  arduous  task  of  shepherds 
and  laborers,  —  everything  interested  and 
attracted  him,  everything  served  as  mate- 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  71 

rial  for  instruction,  everything  was  to  him 
a  proof  of  the  incessant  activity  of  the 
heavenly  Father  and  his  infinite  love. 
There  was  in  it,  to  him,  a  perpetual  rev- 
elation, which  preserved  him  from  the  hard 
and  dry  Rabbinism  of  his  contemporaries. 
He  collected  facts,  accumulated  experi- 
ences, of  which  he  was  later  to  open  the 
inexhaustible  treasure  to  those  whom  he 
would  teach. 

Finally,  in  his  hours  of  solitude,  the 
question  of  his  destiny  formulated  itself: 
Why  am  I  in  the  world?  What  is  my 
mission?  What  is  to  be  my  life?  He 
asked  his  Father;  he  occupied  himself 
with  the  things  that  concerned  Him.  The 
Synagogue  had  revealed  to  him  the  exist- 
ence of  a  multitude  of  religious  questions, 
and  had  not  answered  one  of  them.  He  had 
read  the  Prophets,  and  the  mission  of  his 
people  had  been  revealed  to  him.  But 
one  question  included  all  the  others,  and 
forced  itself  upon  him:  Who  would  be 
the  Messiah?  When  would  he  appear? 
What  work  would  he  accomplish?  Thus 
passed  eighteen  years,  and  he  arrived 
slowly,  but  surely,  at  the  unalterable  con- 
viction, "  The  Messiah !    I  myself  am  he !  " 


V 
STUDIES   AND   READING 


CHAPTER   V 

STUDIES   AND    READING 

"DEADING  was  certainly  one  of  the 
principal  sources  of  Jesus'  education. 
It  is  not  diflScult  to  divine  what  books 
he  knew  and  pondered.  First  of  all  must 
be  named  the  Old  Testament.  The  one 
which  he  read  was  less  complete  than  our 
own.  It  consisted  of  two  volumes.  The 
first,  called  "The  Law,"  included  the  five 
books  attributed  to  Moses.  They  had  a 
more  particularly  sacred  character  than  all 
the  others;  and  every  one  believed,  as  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  say,  that  God 
himself  had  dictated  their  contents  to  the 
Hebrew  Lawgiver,  word  by  word.  The 
second  volume,  called  "The  Prophets," 
contained  the  following  books,  in  the 
order  given:  Part  First,  — Joshua,  Judges, 
1  Samuel,  2  Samuel,  1  Kings,  2  Kings. 
Part  Second,  — Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel, 
Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah, 


76  JESUS   CHRIST 

Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai, 
Zechariah,  Malachi. 

The  other  books  which  we  fmd  in  our 
Old  Testament  to-day  were  not  yet  gathered 
into  a  sacred  collection.  They  were  none 
the  less  considered  as  having  come  from 
God;  for  every  writing  bearing  the  name 
of  one  of  the  great  men  of  the  past  was 
held  to  be  divine.  Jesus  certainly  never 
had  the  modern  notion  of  a  closed,  defini- 
tively fixed  canon.  He  read  the  Book  of 
Daniel  with  the  same  veneration  as  those 
of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  and  yet  this  book 
was  not  in  the  collection  which  included 
the  writings  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  But 
Daniel  had  been  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able seers  of  the  Exile,  and  his  book  con- 
tained revelations  of  capital  importance. 

The  same  was  the  case  with  the  Psalms. 
In  the  time  of  Jesus  these  were  simply  the 
Hymn  Book  of  the  Synagogue;  but  this 
collection  of  sacred  songs  was  considered 
by  the  whole  people  as  divine;  it  was 
sometimes  named  in  connection  with  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets;  men  added  "and 
the  Psalms."^  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  certain  books  like  Ezra,  Nehemiah, 
1  Luke  xxiv.  44. 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  77 

Esther,  Ecclesiastes,  the  Song  of  Songs, 
which  Jesus  never  quoted;  and  there  are 
some  among  the  number  of  whose  existence 
he  was  probably  always  unaware. 

The  first  book  which  he  knew  was  cer- 
tainly the  Law,  because  this  was  the  work 
most  respected  by  the  people,  and  because 
he  heard  it  read  in  the  Synagogue  every 
Sabbath  day.  For  that  matter,  the  Syna- 
gogue was,  without  any  doubt,  his  first 
religious  school  and  his  first  inspiring 
influence.  He  had  early  begun  to  attend 
it  mth  all  his  veneration  and  childish 
piety.  He  continued,  as  a  young  man,  to 
be  present  at  its  services ;  and  never,  dur- 
ing his  whole  life,  did  he  fail  to  take  part 
in  the  Synagogue  worship.  ^  The  sermons 
which  he  heard  there  every  week  —  for  reg- 
ular sermons  were  preached  there  —  aroused 
him  to  thought,  provoked  him  to  reflec- 
tion. It  would  happen  that  these  sermons, 
which  were  explanations  of  the  text,  were 
contradictory;  and  Jesus  would  assimilate 
one  thing,  reject  another,  ask  himself  how 
he  himself  would  have  explained  such  a 
passage;  above  all  things  recoiling  from 
the  scholasticism  which  was  the  canker 
of  Judaism  in  his  time. 

1  "As  his  custom  was."     Luke  iv.  16. 


78  JESUS    CHRIST 

The  Synagogue  of  Nazareth,  where  he 
was  one  day  to  read  a  fragment  from 
Isaiah,  1  was  a  very  large  rectangular  build- 
ing. In  the  interior  there  were  four 
columns  on  each  side;  at  the  end  an  ele- 
vated semicircular  rostrum,  upon  which 
were  seated  the  readers  and  the  Scribes. ^ 
A  great  chest  contained  the  sacred  manu- 
scripts, and  in  front  of  it  was  a  small  pul- 
pit. The  hall  was  furnished  with  benches, 
the  seats  in  the  first  rows  and  on  the  plat- 
form being  paid  for.  These  were  the 
seats  of  the  wealthy.  Joseph  and  his  sons 
would  have  places  on  one  side  of  the  hall,  in 
the  free  seats ;  Mary  and  her  daughters  on 
the  other  side,  —  for  the  sexes  were  always 
separated.  The  women  were  veiled,  and 
the  men  kept  on  their  turbans. 

When  the  sermon  began,  a  person  who 
had  been  selected  beforehand  mounted  the 
platform  and  recited  the  Shema  and  the 
Shemone  Esre;  ^  the  congregation,  stand- 
ing, responded  with  a  loud  Amen  at  the 

^  Luke  iv.  17. 

"^  These  were  the  architectural  features  of  all 
synagogues,  and  consequently  of  the  synagogue  of 
Nazareth. 

^  For  the  Shemone  Esre  see  my  work  "  Palestine 
in  the  Time  of  Jesus  Christ,"  5th  ed.,  p.  375  ff. 


BEFORE  BIS  MINISTRY  79 

close  of  each  prayer.  No  doubt  Jesus  had 
more  than  once  been  called  to  repeat  these 
two  prayers. 

After  this  the  Law  was  read ;  that  is  to 
say,  about  fifty  verses  of  the  Pentateuch. 
The  Chazzan,  a  sort  of  sacristan,  had  taken 
from  the  chest  the  case  containing  the 
sacred  texts ;  and  seven  men  read,  by  turn, 
three  or  four  verses  apiece,  in  monotonous 
and  nasal  tones.  Every  three  years  the 
entire  Pentateuch  was  thus  read  through. 
Between  his  twelfth  and  thirtieth  years 
Jesus  must  have  heard  it  read  six  times  in 
the  Synagogue  of  Nazareth.  Each  verse 
was  read  in  Hebrew,  the  original  language, 
and  immediately  translated  into  Syriac; 
for  the  people  of  Nazareth  did  not  under- 
stand Hebrew. 

In  his  childhood  Jesus  understood  it  no 
more  than  the  others,  and  he  was  obliged 
lo  learn  it  when  he  undertook  to  make  a 
private  study  of  the  text.  It  is  probable 
that  he  never  spoke  it  fluently,  for  not 
one  of  those  utterances  of  his  which  the 
Gospels  have  preserved  in  their  original 
text  is  in  Hebrew.  They  were  all  uttered 
in  Syi'iac,  his  mother  tongue;  he  never 
used  any  other  in  conversation,  and  even 


80  JESUS  CHRIST 

when  he  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament, 
he  quoted  it  only  as  translated  into  Syriac. 

When  the  reading  was  finished,  one  of 
the  readers  made  an  oral  comment,  an 
exposition,  or  a  sort  of  homily.  As  a 
child  Jesus  long  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
authority,  with  no  thought  of  questioning 
them,  these  interpretations,  of  which  the 
Talmudic  commentaries  may  give  us  an 
idea.  Most  generally  they  were  trivial  and 
unintelligent  remarks,  forced  reconcilia- 
tions, puerile  observations. 

This  commentary  finished,  the  individual 
who  had  recited  the  opening  prayers  read 
a  passage  from  the  Book  of  the  Prophets. 
Every  three  verses  were  translated  by  an 
interpreter;  finally,  the  benediction  was 
pronounced,  and  the  assembly  dispersed. 
These  various  readings  and  recitations 
were  alternated  with  the  singing  of  Psalms, 
and  three  deacons  gathered  the  gifts  of  the 
worshippers  for  the  poor. 

One  of  the  first  steps  in  the  self-educa- 
tion of  Jesus  was  certainly  to  borrow, 
during  week  days,  the  roll  of  the  Torah, 
in  order  to  read  over  again  the  passage 
commented  upon  the  previous  Sabbath. 
Thus   he   became    thoroughly   acquainted 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  81 

with  the  history  of  his  people,  and  the 
stories  in  the  Mosaic  books  became  very 
familiar  to  him,  —  the  Creation,  the  Fall, 
Abel,  Noah,  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  all 
the  patriarchs,  Moses  and  his  mighty 
deeds;  then,  in  the  collection  of  the 
Prophets,  David,  Solomon,  Elijah,  Elisha 
were  his  favorite  heroes. 

He  had  his  favorites  among  the  writing 
prophets.  He  seems  not  to  have  enjoyed 
them  equally.  Isaiah  appears  to  have  been 
the  author  of  his  choice,  and  perhaps  the 
Psalms  alone  were  more  familiar  to  him 
than  this  prophecy.  It  is  probable  that  he 
succeeded  in  procuring  copies  of  the  Scrip- 
tures for  himself,  which  he  would  not  need 
to  return  to  the  Synagogue  after  having 
become  acquainted  with  them ;  for  the  very 
poorest,  if  they  were  pious,  procured  for 
themselves  sheets  of  parchment,  upon  which 
they  copied,  or  caused  to  be  copied  by  some 
obliging  Scribe,  the  texts  which  they  most 
cared  to  read  often.  The  handwriting  of 
these  manuscripts  which  Jesus  read,  after 
having  had  them  copied  or  copying  them 
himself,  was  precisely  that  of  our  Hebrew 
Bibles  to-day. 

The  Law  was  to  him  the  Word  of  God; 


82  JESUS   CHRIST 

neither  more  nor  less.  In  his  eyes  this 
word  was  the  ground  of  authority.  He 
never  put  a  single  critical  question  with 
regard  to  it.  For  him,  everything  that 
was  written  was  entirely  authentic  and 
veracious.  It  all  came  from  God ;  it  was 
all  true.  The  formula  "  It  is  written  "  was 
for  him  the  synonym  for  "  God  said."  And 
yet  he  felt  that  in  very  many  respects  this 
Word  was  surpassed  in  his  own  case  by 
his  conscience,  by  an  unerring,  secret,  and 
immediate  intuition  of  truth  which  he 
bore  within  him.  He  presented  this  unique 
phenomenon,  that  he  was  at  the  same  time 
obedient  to  the  Word  of  God  and  superior 
to  it.  Take,  for  example,  a  passage  from 
his  Sermon  on  the  Mount :  "  Ye  have  heard 
that  it  was  said  to  them  of  old  time.  Thou 
shalt  not  kill,  and  whosoever  shall  kill  shall 
be  in  danger  of  the  judgment.  But  I  say 
unto  you  that  every  one  who  is  angry  with 
his  brother  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judg- 
ment. "^  He  accepted,  therefore,  the  com- 
mandment "Thou  shalt  not  kill;  "he  did 
not  reject  it,  but  he  explained  it,  and  showed 
that  it  imp]  ies  hatred  and  wrath ;  he  rose 
from  the  act  to  the  sentiment  which  dic- 
1  Matt.  V.  21,  22. 


BEFORE   niS   MINISTRY  83 

tates  it.  This  exegesis  appeared  to  him 
legitimate.  He  affirmed  that  his  way  of 
seeing  is  the  true  interpretation  of  tlie  text, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  was  lie  who  spoke, 
and  he  knew  it  well ;  for  he  thus  speaks : 
"  But  /  say  unto  you,  —  /. " 

If,  now,  we  study  this  interpretation 
given  by  Jesus,  in  itself,  we  see  that  it 
separates  that  in  the  Law  which  is  eternal 
from  that  which  is  temporary;  and  we 
shall  show,  later,  that  in  this  he  was  only 
applying  a  method  which  was  always  his, 
a  method  which  he  always  made  use  of 
in  all  circumstances,  —  "  Abolish  nothing , 
fulfil  everything." 

We  have  said  that  it  was  especially 
Isaiah  and  the  Psalms  which  inspired  him. 
It  was  in  them,  indeed,  that  he  found  uni- 
versality, that  he  learned  that  all  men  are 
brothers,  that  God  is  the  father  of  all 
men ,  that  he  discovered  that  worship  which 
is  of  no  time  nor  fatherland,  —  worship  in 
spirit  and  in  truth,  independent  of  rites  and 
formulas,  which  he  was  ever  afterward 
to  preach.  The  Books  of  Jeremiah  and 
Hosea  also  made  a  part  of  his  favorite 
reading.  He  loved  to  repeat  sentences 
drawn    from    one    or    another    of    these 


84  JESUS  CHRIST 

prophets;  for  example,  this:  "I  desire 
mercy  and  not  sacriifice."^ 

The  prophets  also  spoke  to  him  of  a  res- 
toration in  the  future,  a  glorious  era  soon 
to  come,  a  final  redemption  which  would 
be  the  triumph  of  Jehovah;  and  his  faith 
in  himself  and  in  an  exceptional  mission 
awakened  and  grew  strong,  comparing 
these  visions  with  the  wretchedness  which 
surrounded  him,  this  future  happiness 
with  the  woes  of  his  time  and  people,  and 
feeling  within  himself  the  growth  of  a  reli- 
gious and  moral  strength  which  surpassed 
that  of  the  best  among  his  contemporaries. 

Desirous  of  studying  more  closely  the 
Messianic  hopes  of  his  time,  he  had  recourse 
to  those  who  had  specially  treated  the  sub- 
ject; in  particular  two  Apocalypses  much 
valued  by  his  contemporaries,  —  the  Book 
of  Daniel  and  that  of  Enoch. 

He  was  led  to  study  them  by  the  reli- 
gious and  political  condition  of  his  nation. 
Continual  seditions  agitated  the  people,  and 
kept  alive  the  hope  of  a  speedy  deliverance. 
Of  this  profoundly  disturbed  situation 
Nazareth  certainly  felt  the  reflex  influence. 
Men  must  have  talked  politics  in  the  small 
1  Hosea  vi.  6. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  85 

village  square  on  Sabbath  days  on  coming 
out  of  the  Synagogue;  they  must  have 
eagerly  questioned  every  one  who  had  come 
from  Jerusalem  during  the  week,  asking 
them,  "What  news  is  there?  Has  any 
zealot  risen?  Has  the  Procurator  com- 
mitted any  new  crime?"  One  day  some 
one  told  Jesus  that  Archelaus  had  been 
deposed  by  the  Romans,  and  that  they  had 
reduced  Judea  to  the  rank  of  a  province ; 
another  day  he  learned  from  the  lips  of 
some  ardent  patriot  of  the  uprising  of 
Judas  the  Gaulonite.  He  had  revolted 
and  refused  to  pay  the  tax.  Ought  one 
to  pay  it?  Yes,  or  no.  Some  said  we 
ought  not,  for  God  alone  is  our  Master, 
and  to  pay  it  is  to  consent  to  servitude  and 
recognize  the  power  of  the  Romans.  But 
Judas,  said  others,  was  put  down  by  the 
Procui'ator  Coponius;  ought  they  not  to 
see  in  his  defeat  the  finger  of  God,  who 
wills  that  we  should  render  unto  Csesar 
the  things  that  are  Csesar's?  Jesus  lis- 
tened to  all  these  impassioned  discussions. 
He  learned  that  the  death  of  agitators  was 
certain,  but  he  also  learned  that  such 
a  death  was  sought  after  by  them  as  a 
triumph,  and  that  enthusiasts  made  it  their 


86  JESUS   CHRIST 

glory  to  have  no  care  for  life,  provided 
they  could  defend  to  the  last  the  sacred 
cause,  —  the  cause  of  God. 

In  the  last  analysis  all  minds  were  agi- 
tated with  the  Messianic  hope.  In  every 
line  of  the  Old  Testament  they  saw  the 
announcement  of  the  future  kingdom ;  they 
calculated  the  period  of  the  Messiah's 
coming;  and  their  calculations  brought 
them  precisely  to  the  troubled  time  in 
which  they  were  living.  The  Messiah  is 
about  to  appear!  was  the  universal  cry. 

We  can  understand,  therefore,  that  Jesus 
would  wish  to  be  familiar  with  the  Books 
of  Daniel  and  Enoch.  Daniel  was  the  work 
of  all  others  most  widely  read  and  vener- 
ated by  Jews  of  the  first  century.  ^  This 
book  impressed  him  strongly.  It  summed 
up  the  opinions  of  the  best  theologians  of 
the  preceding  centuries.  It  gave  a  true 
philosophy  of  history,  and,  subordinating 
everything  to  the  Jewish  people,  saw  in 
the  succession  of  empires  only  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  will  of  God  with  regard 
to  his  chosen  people. 

In  the  Book  of  Daniel  Jesus  read  for 
the  first  time  the  name  "Son  of  man,"  by 

1  Josephus,  Ant.  x.  10,  17. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  87 

which  he  at  a  later  time  chose  to  designate 
himself.  He  found  there,  also,  the  pre- 
diction of  the  universal  empire  of  the 
righteous,  and  the  clear  and  positive  affir- 
mation of  the  resurrection  from  the  dead. 

The  Book  of  Enoch,  in  its  turn,  made 
these  predictions  more  definite.  Jesus  did 
not  read  it  in  the  form  in  which  we  possess 
it,  for  this  book  is  composed  of  fragments, 
and  more  than  one  of  them  is  later  than 
Jesus  Christ.  But  it  is  easy  to  distinguish 
these ;  and  the  Palestinian  origin  of  many 
passages  certainly  anterior  to  Christianity 
is  to-day  beyond  all  dispute. 

Jesus  read  those  passages  which  are 
apparently  of  Essenian  origin.  The  author 
expects  a  last  assault  of  Gentile  —  that  is, 
Syrian  —  power.  This  assault,  repulsed 
by  God,  will  be  followed  by  a  judgment. 
The  fallen  angels  and  faithless  Jews  will 
be  cast  into  the  pit.  A  new  Jerusalem 
will  be  built  by  God,  and  pious  Israelites 
will  there  receive  the  homage  of  the  Gen- 
tiles. Then  will  appear  the  Messiah.  He 
is  represented  under  the  image  of  a  white 
bull.  All  the  Gentiles  will  pray  to  him,  and 
will  be  converted  to  the  true  God. 

To  the  reading  of  these  books  Jesus  per- 


88  JESUS   CHRIST 

haps  added  that  of  the  Psahns  of  Solomon, 
—  a  collection  composed  about  sixty-three 
years  before  his  birth.  In  it  he  found  the 
announcement  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
the  perpetuity  of  this  kingdom  in  the  house 
of  David.  A  king  descended  from  David 
should  be  raised  up  by  God  to  destroy  the 
enemies  of  Israel  and  drive  out  the  Gen- 
tiles from  Jerusalem.  This  king  would  be 
righteous;  he  would  be  the  Anointed  of 
the  Lord,  full  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
pure  from  all  sin. 

Did  Jesus  know  any  other  works,  lost  to 
us,  of  the  very  existence  of  which  we  are 
ignorant,  which  spoke  of  the  glorious 
things  which  the  Jewish  people  would 
perform,  and  of  the  eternal  kingdom  which 
God  would  set  up  in  a  near  future  ?  It  is 
lawful  to  suppose  so ;  for  if  any  one  was 
eager  to  become  acquainted  with  all  pre- 
dictions and  search  out  their  meaning,  if 
any  one  was  able  to  draw  from  them  the 
fragments  of  truth  which  they  contained,  it 
assuredly  must  have  been  Jesus. 

Still  we  cannot  but  notice  how  remote 
from  his  thought  was  all  the  strange,  fan- 
tastic, exaggerated  side  of  these  apocalyptic 
visions.     What  a  distance  between  his  sim- 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  89 

pie,  popular  teachings,  figurative  no  doubt, 
but  with  figures  always  quiet   and   cohe- 
rent, and  the  books  of  his  people,  with  their 
tissues  of  false  and  fantastical  symbolism ! 
In  these  books  everything  is  allegorical ; 
and,  indeed,  in  the  time  of  Jesus  allegory 
was  used  by  everybody  in  all  cases.     But 
there  is  not  a  trace  of  this  sort  of  metaphor 
in  his  own  teachings,  and  it  is  certain  that 
he  alone  of  all  his  people  was  distinctly 
repelled    by   this    pretentious   allegorism. 
In   the   matter   of   allegory  he   had   only 
parables,  —  a  sort  of  comparison,  of  which 
one  of  the  greatest  merits  is  that  it  is  mar- 
vellously natural  and  simple,  while  in  the 
Book  of  Enoch,  for  example,  all  is  strange, 
exaggerated,  complicated.     The  advent  of 
the  Messiah  is  there   predicted,   with  all 
the  tremendous  and  terrifying  events  which 
are  to  come  with  him.    Cataclysms  succeed 
one  another,  each  more  extraordinary  than 
the  preceding;  but  Jesus,  who  was  famil- 
iar with  these  high-flown  descriptions,  re- 
mained always  independent  of  them. 

His  exegesis  of  the  Old  Testament  itself 
has  a  sobriety  and  discernment  which  sinr- 
gularly  cut  loose  from  the  exegesis  of  his 
time.     The  Doctors  and  Scribes  excelled 


90    JESUS  CHRIST  BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY. 

at  finding  in  the  Scriptures  what  was  not 
there.  The  Law  was  for  them  the  object 
of  the  most  subtle  interpretations.  In  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psahns  they  discovered 
a  great  number  of  characteristics  referable 
to  the  Messiah,  and  claimed  that  they 
recognized  him  in  all  parts  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Now,  it  does  not  appear  that 
Jesus  was  ever  led  astray  by  these  so- 
called  discoveries.  Upon  this  point  he 
distinctly  separated  himself  from  those 
who  had  been  his  guides. 

Without  reserve  he  admired  the  sublime 
poetry  of  the  Psalms  and  the  magnificent 
disclosures  of  Isaiah.  These  books,  and 
others  like  them,  were  the  principal  ali- 
ment of  his  piety,  and  his  support  day  by 
day.  Isaiah  was  one  of  his  masters;  but 
nothing  indicates  that  he  found  in  his 
writings  anything  which  was  not  there,  or 
that  he  accepted  the  subtle  explanations 
and  forced  exegesis  of  his  contemporaries. 
Notliing  indicates  that  Jesus  ever  under- 
stood the  Scriptures  otherwise  than  in 
their  veritable  sense,  recognizing  the  Mes- 
siah where  he  is  clearly  announced,  and 
refusing  to  discover  him  where  he  certainly 
is  not  to  be  found. 


VI 
JESUS   AND   THE   PHARISEES 


CHAPTER  VI 

JESUS   AND    THE   PHARISEES 

T  T  is  generally  admitted  that  among  the 
Jews  in  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ  there 
were  three  sects,  —  the  Pharisees,  the  Sad- 
ducees,  and  the  Essenes.  But  when  Jose- 
phus  makes  this  statement,  he  completely 
misrepresents  Palestinian  Judaism  in  the 
first  century.  Of  these  three  categories  of 
religionists,  certain  Essenes  of  strict  ob- 
servance were  the  only  sectaries.  It  may 
be  said  that  the  Sadducees  also  formed  a 
party,  but  it  was  of  very  trifling  moment. 
The  priests  of  Jerusalem,  the  pontiffs  in 
the  Temple,  alone  preferred  Sadduceeism. 
They  were  only  a  small,  uninfluential 
group,  confined  to  the  sanctuary. 

As  to  the  Pharisees,  far  from  being  sec- 
taries, they  were  the  nation  itself.  They 
represented  the  general  condition  of  reli- 
gious minds  in  Palestine  in  the  first  cen- 
tury.    Every  pious  Jew  was,  if  one  may 


94  JESUS   CHRIST 

use  the  expression,  modelled  after  the 
Pharisees.  The  Pharisees  had  taken  pos- 
session of  the  synagogues.  They  directed 
the  teachings  there  given;  and  hence 
whoever  among  the  Jews  was  seriously 
concerned  with  religion,  whoever  had  any 
piety,  was  of  the  number  of  the  Phar- 
isees. It  may  be  said,  in  consequence, 
that  Jesus  also,  in  his  youth,  was  under 
Pharisaic  influence. 

The  opposition  which  is  always  assumed 
between  Pharisaism  and  Christianity  rests 
in  part  upon  the  celebrated  invective,  eight 
times  repeated,  "Woe  unto  you.  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,"  etc.^  But 
Jesus  said  these  words  exactly  as  a 
preacher  of  our  days  might  say  from  his 
pulpit,  "  Woe  unto  you,  proud  and  hypo- 
critical Christians,  who  make  a  point  of 
attending  the  services  of  the  Church,  and 
yet  are  formalists,  not  practising  during 
the  week  what  you  hear  on  Sunday !  "  No 
doubt  modern  preachers  are  in  the  habit  of 
expressing  themselves  in  more  moderate 
terms ;  but,  the  form  apart,  they  continually 
say  similar  things  to  their  hearers.  Who 
would  conclude  from  this  that  all  Chris- 
1  Matt,  xxiii. 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  95 

tians  are  of  this  sort ;  that  the  preacher  who 
thus  speaks  is  their  adversary,  and  that 
they  are  his  irreconcilable  enemies?  No 
one.  Yet  from  the  invectives  of  Jesus 
men  have  concluded  that  all  Pharisees 
were  hypocrites;  and  the  word  "Phari- 
see "  has  become  a  synonym  for  the  word 
"Jesuit."  Many  are  the  historical  errors, 
received  as  indisputable  truths,  which  rest 
upon  misunderstandings  of  this  sort. 

Let  me  attempt  to  show  the  true  char- 
acter of  Pharisaism  in  the  time  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  Pharisees  and  the  Essenes  —  of 
whom  we  shall  speak  in  the  next  chapter 
—  represented  two  sides  of  the  same  ten- 
dency which  Jesus  thoroughly  knew,  toward 
which  he  felt  himself  in  many  respects 
drawn,  and  from  which  he  borrowed  not  a 
little.  Far  from  considering  Pharisaism, 
as  a  whole,  dangerous,  and  all  Pharisees 
enemies,  he  had  a  number  of  them  among 
his  friends;  he  often  ate  with  them,  and 
at  a  later  day  his  Church  was  very  largely 
recruited  from  among  the  Pharisees. 

The  Talmud  distinguishes  several  classes 
of  Pharisees,  and  only  one  among  the  seven 
which  it  mentions  was  tlie  object  of  the 
merited  reprobation  of  Jesus. 


96  JESUS   CHRIST 

The  work  of  the  Pharisees,  as  a  whole, 
and  apart  from  a  few  regrettable  excep- 
tions, consisted  in  spiritualizing  Judaism 
by  detaching  it  from  the  Temple,  the 
sacrifices,  and  the  whole  sacerdotal  ritual. 
This  part  of  the  Jewish  religion  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  Sadducees,  —  rich  aristo- 
crats who  lived  in  the  Temple  and  by  the 
Temple,  and,  so  to  speak,  never  left  the 
Temple;  whose  influence  over  the  people 
was  naught,  and  who  were  to  be  found 
only  at  Jerusalem.  With  the  Sadducees 
the  rite  alone  was  of  importance.  They 
were  the  incarnation  of  the  narrowest 
formalism,  and  concerned  themselves  not 
at  all  with  ideas  and  beliefs.  Jesus  never 
felt  anything  but  aversion,  and  even  a 
profound  and  legitimate  repugnance  for 
Sadduceeism.  The  Sadducees  returned  it 
to  him  with  interest,  and  at  bottom  they 
were  his  only  real  enemies.  It  was  these 
formalists  without  piety,  these  aristocrats 
without  either  faith  or  good  faith,  who 
condemned  him  to  death.  Jesus  never 
opposed  them  in  words.  He  imitated  the 
Pharisees,  their  ancient  political  foes,  who 
in  the  first  century  had  long  stood  aloof 
from    them;    they   thinking,  not   without 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  97 

reason,  that  these  sceptics,  who  had  the 
habits  without  the  convictions  of  religion, 
were  at  once  despicable,  and  without 
danger  to  true  Judaism. 

Furthermore,  during  his  entire  youth 
Jesus  knew  nothing  about  the  Sadducees. 
His  visits  to  Jerusalem  were  too  infre- 
quent and  too  brief  for  it  to  be  possible  for 
him  to  come  into  relations  with  them. 

The  Pharisees,  as  we  have  said,  were 
masters  of  the  synagogues.  There  they 
spiritualized  Judaism,  a  work  of  which 
Jesus  certainly  approved;  and  when  the 
latter  said,  with  Hosea,  in  the  name  of 
Jehovah,  "I  desire  mercy,  and  not  sacri- 
fice," he  adopted  one  of  their  favorite 
maxims.  During  the  early  part  of  his 
ministry  Jesus  had  intimate  and  frequent 
relations  with  this  class  of  Pharisees, 
who  were  not,  I  admit,  the  entire  body, 
but  who,  I  believe,  formed  the  great 
majority  of  it.  Very  few  of  them,  it  is 
true,  had  the  courage  to  approve  him 
openly;  but  more  than  one  of  them  had 
secret  relations  with  him.  One  came  to 
liim  by  night;  ^  another  warned  him  that 
Herod  desired  to  kill  him ;  ^  some  of  them 

^  Jolm  iii.  1.  2  Luke  xiii.  31. 

7 


98  JESUS   CHRIST 

were  not  afraid  to  invite  him  to  their 
houses,  and  receive  him  at  their  tables.  ^ 

The  day  was  to  come,  however,  when 
there  would  be  a  rupture  between  Jesus 
and  the  Pharisees.  This  day  would  be 
one  of  the  most  solemn  of  his  life.  We 
shall  speak  of  it  in  detail  when  we  study 
the  ministry  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Phari- 
sees would  at  length  go  so  far  as  to  concert 
together  to  compass  the  destruction  of 
Jesus.  If  some  among  them  remained 
true  to  him,  they  hid  themselves,  and  not 
one  of  them  dared  to  undertake  his  defence 
at  the  time  of  his  trial.  It  is  even  very 
possible  that  in  the  Sanhedrin  which  con- 
demned Jesus  there  were  a  few  Pharisees, 
although  the  majority  were  evidently 
Sadducees. 

If  the  Pharisees,  as  a  whole,  were  the 
moderate  party,  much  beloved  by  the  peo- 
ple, resisting  the  corruption  and  impiety 
of  the  Sadducees ;  if  Jesus  was  one  day  to 
counsel  men  to  do  all  that  they  said,  — 
"The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  sit  on  Moses' 
seat :  all  things,  therefore,  whatsoever  they 
say  unto  you,  these  do  and  observe,"^  — 

1  Luke  xi.  37. 

2  Matt,  xxiii.  2. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  99 

he  would  nevertheless  acid  that  they  acted 
otherwise  than  they  taught,  "They  say 
and  do  not,"  and  he  was  the  irreconcilable 
adversary  of  that  which  is  to-day  called 
Pharisaism. 

From  all  these  facts  I  think  we  may 
conclude  that  during  the  years  wliich  pre- 
ceded his  public  life  Jesus  studied  the 
Pharisaic  doctrines  closely  and  with  much 
sympathy,  and  that,  far  from  having  been 
from  the  first  the  adversary  of  the  Phari- 
sees, he  began  by  being  their  friend.  He 
heard  them  preach  the  love  of  God  and  of 
one's  neighbor,  deprecate  bloody  sacrifices, 
proclaim  the  imperious  duty  of  obedience 
to  the  Law  in  order  to  be  perfect  in  this 
world  and  to  receive  the  reward  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  How  should  he  not 
have  approved  of  them,  — he  who  was  to 
give  precisely  this  teaching  in  the  earlier 
days  of  his  ministry? 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Phari- 
saic doctors  had  gained  much  in  spirituality 
during  the  time  immediately  preceding  the 
Christian  era.  Hillel  had  undertaken  to 
defend  the  moral  law  against  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  times,  to  replace  the  Temple 
worship  with  a  more  spiritual  adoration, 


100  JESUS   CHRIST 

and  to  sum  up  the  whole  Law  in  the  love 
of  God  and  one's  neighbor.  It  was  a 
Pharisee  who  declared  that  to  love  one's 
neighbor  as  oneself  was  "more  than  all 
whole  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices."  ^ 
Jesus  would  one  day  blame  the  hypocriti- 
cal Pharisees ;  but  the  other  Pharisees  also 
blamed  them.  Although  many  did,  in 
fact,  make  an  external  devotion  a  means 
of  influence  over  the  people,  the  Talmud 
condemned  this:  it  rejected  the  "painted" 
Pharisees,  as  it  called  them,  —  the  double- 
faced  men  who  affected  to  be  true  Pharisees 
and  were  not. 

It  may  even  be  affirmed  not  only  that 
Jesus  associated  with  Pharisees  before  his 
ministry,  but  that  in  a  sense  he  was  one 
of  them.  In  fact,  the  Pharisaism  of  the 
time  was,  as  we  have  shown,  the  true 
Judaism,  the  authentic  and  loyal  Judaism. 
And  Jesus  was  a  Jew  by  birth,  by  belief, 
by  innermost  conviction,  by  all  that  he 
had  received  in  the  strictly  orthodox  sur- 
roundings in  which  he  had  grown  up. 
And  what  did  he  at  first  purpose  to  do? 
He  purposed,  with  the  best  among  the 
Pharisees,  to  spiritualize  the  old  Mosaism, 
1  Mark  xii.  33. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  101 

to  fulfil  it,  by  bringing  it  out  from  the 
narrow  rut  in  which  the  Sadducees  were 
stifling  it.  Therefore  we  see  him  imme- 
diately adopt,  and  all  his  life  preach, 
the  fundamental  belief  of  the  Pharisees, 
namely,  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  It 
was  one  of  their  essential  dogmas,  and  in 
affirming  it  the  Doctors  of  the  second 
Temple  had  made  an  important  innova- 
tion, for  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  justi- 
fication in  the  written  Law.  Jesus  did  as 
they  did ;  and  so  certain  is  it  that  he  held 
this  doctrine  from  the  Pharisees,  that  we 
fuid  him  making  use  of  the  arguments  of 
the  Pharisees  to  justify  himself,  ^  citing  the 
Torah  as  they  did,  and  replying  to  the 
Sadducees  as  the  Pharisees  might  have 
done. 

What,  then,  was  definitely  the  attitude 
of  Jesus  in  face  of  Pharisaism?  Was  he 
a  Pharisee  in  youth,  only  to  abandon  the 
party  at  a  later  day?  Certainly  not.  We 
have  just  shown  in  what  sense  it  may  be 
said  that  Jesus  was  a  Pharisee;  but  he 
never  belonged  to  any  party,  to  any  school ; 
he  never  gave  up  his  independence,  and 
never  accepted  the  party  cry  of  any  one. 
1  Matt.  xxii.  23  £E. 


102  JESUS  CHRIST 

He  was  amenable  only  to  his  Father  and 
himself. 

Not  that  he  isolated  himself,  and  would 
learn  nothing  that  his  contemporaries 
might  have  been  able  to  teach  him.  All 
that  we  have  hitherto  said  tends  to  prove 
the  contrary.  If  Jesus  belonged  to  no 
party,  no  party  was  a  stranger  to  him. 
He  knew,  studied,  understood  them  all. 
Let  us  rather  say  he  had  assimilated  them 
all,  with  a  penetration  whose  power  and 
depth  cannot  be  too  much  admired;  and 
with  regard  to  each  of  them  he  fulfilled  all 
and  destroyed  nothing. 

The  day  would  come  when  he  would  use 
this  expression  to  characterize  his  attitude 
toward  the  Law.  It  may  be  applied  to  his 
attitude  toward  all  parties  and  all  doctrines 
of  his  time.  Still  more,  the  word  is  one 
which  reveals  that  which  was  the  con- 
stant method  of  Jesus.  And  yet  the  term 
"  method  "  is  not  exact,  for  it  supposes  a 
predetermined  system  consciously  applied 
to  men  and  things ;  while  with  Jesus  it  was 
the  very  essence  of  what  for  want  of  a 
better  term  we  will  dare  to  call  his  genius. 
Everywhere  and  in  all  things,  whether 
with   regard    to    the    Old   Testament,    to 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  103 

Moses  and  the  prophets,  with  regard  to 
the  religious  parties  which  surrounded 
him,  Pharisees  or  Essenes,  or  with  regard 
simply  to  such  a  detail  as  the  adoption  of 
the  term  "  Son  of  man  "  or  the  rule  for  the 
observance  of  the  Sabbath,  or  with  regard 
to  what  was  to  be  understood  by  the  King- 
dom of  God,  the  advent  of  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Judgment,  the  age  to  come,  he 
accepted,  comprehended,  penetrated,  as- 
similated them  all,  and  at  the  same  time 
transformed,  renewed,  regenerated,  created 
them  all  anew.  He  made  the  partition 
between  that  which  passes  away  and  that 
which  remains,  that  which  is  perishable 
and  that  which  is  eternal;  he  preserved 
the  seed  and  let  fall  the  husk. 

Jesus  therefore  kept  a  complete  inde- 
pendence with  regard  to  all  the  parties  of 
his  time.  Never,  in  any  place,  do  we  see 
him  enrolling  himself  under  any  banner 
whatsoever;  and  it  was  certainly  thus  dur- 
ing that  long  portion  of  his  life  which  is 
not  known  to  us.  Scrupulous  observer  of 
the  beliefs  of  his  people  and  their  religious 
traditions,  conservator  of  the  past,  he  trans- 
formed and  spiritualized  it,  while  before 
all  else  remaining  himself.      It  is  therefore 


104  J£SUS   CHRIST 

not  exact  to  say  that  he  was  subject  to  the 
influence  of  the  religious  parties  of  his 
time,  for  he  was  subject  to  nothing,  and  he 
never  accepted  any  doctrine  ready  made. 
He  was  often  in  sympathy  with  the  ideas 
that  surrounded  him,  but  he  never  per- 
mitted himself  to  be  led  away  by  them. 
His  sympathy  helped  him  to  understand 
them,  but  it  never  blinded  him.  He 
examined,  he  judged  all  these  ideas,  and 
either  rejected  or  adopted  them.  Neither 
conservative  nor  revolutionary,  he  yet  was 
both,  bringing  about  the  greatest  revolu- 
tion of  history  wliile  conserving  the  past, 
but  making  it  entirely  new. 

Such,  then,  was  the  unique  feature 
which  made  the  invariable  character  of 
the  line  of  conduct  followed  by  Jesus  with 
regard  to  every  idea,  principle,  belief, 
institution  which  presented  itself  to  him 
for  examination.  He  retained  its  perma- 
nent element,  and  rejected  the  element 
that  was  transitory.  He  tore  off  the  en- 
velope and  kept  the  contents.  With  sure 
and  swift  glance  he  distinguished  that 
wliich  is  eternal  from  that  which  is  tran- 
sitory, taking  no  notice  of  the  latter,  and 
proclaiming   the    absolute    value    of    the 


BEFORE   If  IS  MINISTRY  105 

former.  I  repeat :  whether  the  subject  were 
the  Law,  the  Temple,  the  sacrifices,  the 
prophets,  the  Pharisees,  the  Essenes,  al- 
^vays,  everywhere,  without  a  single  varia- 
tion, thus  he  acted. 


VII 
JESUS   AND   THE   ESSENES 


CHAPTER   VII 

JESUS   AND   THE   ESSENES 

A  FTER  Pharisaism  comes  Essenism. 
Jesus  could  not  have  done  other 
than  study  these  strange  sectaries,  and  in 
many  respects  he  must  have  felt  himself 
drawn  toward  them.  No  doubt  he  asked 
himself  if  there  was  not  something  here, 
—  a  suggestive  line  of  conduct,  an  initia- 
tion to  receive,  in  view  of  his  coming  work. 
Among  the  Essenes,  side  by  side  with 
impossible  caprices  and  veritable  extrava- 
gances, there  was  an  elevation,  a  moral 
grandeur,  which  could  not  fail  to  impress 
Jesus. 

He  has  been  pictured  as  leaving  Nazareth 
and  going  to  study  the  Essenian  practices 
in  the  convents  of  the  oasis  of  Engedi. 
We  shall  be  on  our  guard  against  these 
descriptions,  in  which  there  is  more  imagi- 
nation than  reality.     But  one  fact  remains : 


110  JESUS   CHRIST 

Jesus  knew  the  Essenes  well,   and  prac- 
tised Essenism  to  a  great  degree. 

Let  us  transport  ourselves  to  the  first 
century.  Let  us  walk  along  the  shores  of 
the  Lake  of  Tiberias  and  through  the  vil- 
lages of  Galilee.  We  shall  meet  men  in 
white  garments,  whose  life  is  pure  and  who 
are  much  loved  by  the  people.  They  are 
believed  to  have  the  gift  of  prophecy  and 
of  miracles,  and  every  one  attaches  great 
importance  to  their  words  and  actions. 
They  enjoy  an  authority  which  the  Scribes 
never  succeed  in  gaining. 

They  systematically  abstain  from  pol- 
itics, and  carefully  separate  that  which 
belongs  to  Csesar  from  that  which  belongs 
to  God.  They  love  solitude  and  prayer, 
but  at  the  same  time  are  active  and  zealous. 
Their  preferences  lead  them  among  the 
poor  and  the  sick.  Of  the  greatest  sobriety, 
they  partake  of  only  a  single  dish  at  a 
meal.  It  is  their  custom  to  go  from  place 
to  place,  surrounded  by  disciples,  and  one 
member  of  the  little  group  carries  the  com- 
mon purse.  For  that  matter,  they  live 
only  on  what  is  given  to  them,  and  being 
little  concerned  with  the  material  details 
of  life,  they  feel  no  anxiety  for  the  mor- 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  111 

row.  They  carry  with  them  neither  gold 
nor  silver,  neither  wallet  nor  provisions, 
nor  a  change  of  garments.  They  count 
upon  finding  brethren  in  the  houses  which 
they  may  enter,  to  supply  them  with  what- 
ever they  may  need,  and  they  perceive  by 
the  manner  in  which  their  salutation  of 
peace  is  received,  whether  the  house  they 
have  entered  is  or  is  not  occupied  by 
friends. 

Many  of  them  renounce  marriage,  the 
better  to  consecrate  their  lives  to  their 
work;  but  marriage  is  by  no  means  for- 
bidden them.  Models  of  virtue,  of  probity, 
of  disinterestedness,  they  disapprove  of 
slavery,  they  never  take  oath,  and  forbid 
their  disciples  to  do  so,  confining  them- 
selves to  saying  yea,  yea,  or  nay,  nay; 
and  their  word  is  more  respected  than  the 
oaths  of  other  men.  Finally,  they  celebrate 
in  common  a  religious  meal  of  a  sacred 
character. 

Many  Essenes  occupy  themselves  in 
preaching  and  healing  diseases.  They  also 
baptize  and  permit  their  disciples  to  bap- 
tize. A  certain  number  perform  miracles, 
and  they  acquire  a  great  reputation  by 
their    supernatural    cures.       They    apply 


112  JESUS   CHRIST 

themselves  more  particularly  to  casting 
out  demons,  and  they  are  held  to  be  most 
successful  in  the  practice  of  exorcism. 

One  of  their  fundamental  beliefs  is  the 
near  appearance  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  they  make  this  announcement  the 
foundation  of  their  preaching.  They  call 
it  the  kingdom  of  heaven  (Malchuth-hasli- 
shamayim).  They  say  that  men  must  pre- 
pare themselves  for  this  event,  and  that 
Judaism  is  on  the  verge  of  a  terrible  crisis, 
after  which  will  come  the  times  of  the 
Messiah.  To  hasten  the  arrival  of  this 
blessed  time  men  should  sell  their  goods 
and  give  the  money  to  the  poor.  They 
themselves  have  put  in  practice  this  pre- 
cept; they  have  sold  their  goods,  which 
were  unrighteous  riches;  and  they  have 
this  advantage  over  the  Pharisees  that 
what  they  say  they  do,  while  the  Pharisees 
say  and  do  not:  therefore  the  Essenes 
accuse  the  latter  of  being  hypocrites. 

To  recall  these  details  is  to  show  at  once 
tliat  which  nascent  Christianity  had  in 
common  with  Essenism;  and  to  say  that 
Jesus  did  not  practise  Essenism,  especially 
in  the  beginning  of  his  ministry,  and  when 
he  was  in  relations  with  John  the  Baptist, 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  1V6 

whose  words  and  mode  of  life  offered 
many  points  of  resemblance  to  those  of  the 
Essenes,  is  to  den}^  the  very  evidence- 
But  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to 
undertake  to  explain  Jesus  by  saying  he 
was  an  Essene;  for  he  no  more  belonged 
to  this  party  than  to  any  other.  He  was 
always  at  an  incomparable  height  above 
Essenism,  and  he  treated  it  as  he  treated 
Pharisaism,  with  entire  liberty  and  com- 
plete detachment.  If  he  adopted  certain 
of  their  customs  and  even  of  their  ideas, 
which  is  undeniable,  he  separated  himself 
squarely  from  them  upon  that  which  was 
the  very  foundation  of  their  purpose. 

The  customs  of  Essenism  were  his  own 
customs,  and  he  could  not  do  otherwise 
than  love  the  virtues,  the  morality,  the 
disinterestedness  of  the  Essenes ;  but  those 
whom  he  resembled  in  outward  practice, 
those  who  went  here  and  there,  preach- 
ing the  kingdom  of  God  and  surroimding 
themselves  with  disciples,  held  doctrines 
against  which  Jesus  constantly  protested. 
Their  incessant  concern  was  to  avoid  by 
exterior  purifications  the  uncleannesses  for- 
bidden by  Moses,  and  to  practise  Levitical 
purity  in  all  its  austere  rigor.  Hence  their 
8 


114  JESUS   CHRIST 

batliings,  their  ablutions,  their  baptisms, 
which  Jesus  did  not  immediately  reject, 
perhaps,  but  which  he  early  repudiated. 

The  fourth  gospel  tells  us  this  in  a  pas- 
sage which  is  certainly  historic,  and  to 
which  we  shall  return  in  speaking  of  John 
the  Baptist.  Jesus  at  first  baptized,  it 
says ;  ^  then  he  himself  left  off,  but  per- 
mitted the  disciples  to  baptize. ^  But  it 
is  probable  that  he  did  not  long  permit 
them  to  do  it.  All  that  took  place  at  the 
beginning,  when  his  ministry  and  that  of 
John  the  Baptist  were  still  mingled  with 
one  another.  But  discussions  about  bap- 
tism arose,  of  which  the  Evangelist  John 
has  preserved  the  echo ;  ^  and  then  Jesus 
entirely  and  completely  separated  himself 
from  these  practices. 

Besides,  true  Essenes,  consistent  Es- 
senes,  those  who  were  convinced  of  the 
impossibility  of  subjecting  themselves  to 
all  the  exigencies  of  the  Law,  did  not  re- 
main in  the  world.  The}^  retired  into 
monasteries  built  on  the  west  of  the  Red 
Sea.     In  the  oasis  of   Engedi  they  lived 

1  John  iii.  22. 

2  John  iv.  1,.2. 
8  John  iii.  25  &. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  115 

upon  dates,  a  pure  aliment,  and  plunged 
into  pure  water  several  times  a  day. 
Poor  dreamers,  given  to  mystical  and 
esoteric  speculations,  they  avoided  tlie 
stains  of  the  body,  and  believed  that  thus 
they  avoided  those  of  the  soul.  They 
were  never  more  severely  condemned  than 
by  Jesus,  who  cried,  "Not  that  which 
goeth  into  a  man  can  defile  a  man,  but 
that  which  cometh  out  of  a  man."^  Jesus 
certainly  adopted  notliing  but  their  out- 
ward customs;  in  all  other  respects  he 
always  stood  aloof  from  them. 

With  regard  to  Essenism,  his  conduct 
was  the  same  that  it  was  in  regard  to  all 
other  things,  —  destroying  in  order  to  ful- 
fil. During  his  ministry  he  retained  only 
a  superficial  resemblance  to  the  Essenes. 
Here  again,  here  more  than  elsewhere,  he 
kept  only  that  which  abides,  and  energet- 
ically cast  away  all  that  is  perishable  and 
outworn.  He  kept  of  Essenism  only  the 
moral  life  which  animated  it,  and  let  fall 
the  coarse  husk  which  enveloped  its 
idea  and  kept  it  imprisoned  in  the  nar- 
rowest and  most  superannuated  legalism. 

^  Mark  vii.  14,  15.  The  entire  chapter  is  the 
condemnation  of  Essenism. 


116  JESUS   CHRIST 

Fui'thermore,  other  thoughts  occupied 
him.  The  Essenes  preached  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  announced  the  Messianic  times, 
but  the}'  never  spoke  of  the  person  of  the 
Messiah.  With  Jesus  this  was  the  matter 
of  supreme  interest.  The  Messiah  was 
about  to  appear !     Who  could  he  be  ? 

Was  it,  tlien,  in  one  of  his  hours  of 
retreat  upon  the  Jebel-es-Sikli,  that  for 
the  first  time  the  sublime  thought  came  to 
him,  "  What  if  I  were  the  Messiah !  What 
if  /  should  accomplish  the  expected 
work  I  What  if  I  were  the  One  sent  by 
the  Father!  Oh,  to  overtlu'ow  Satan's 
throne,  —  to  vanquish  sin,  sorrow,  and 
death!"  Was  not  that  a  call  which  he 
heard?  Was  it  the  divine  call?  Per- 
haps. Was  the  hour  marked  by  the  Father 
about  to  strike,  and  to  strike  for  him  ? 

Yet  a  little  wliile  and  he  was  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  the  extraordinary  man 
under  whose  influence  he  would  pronounce 
the  definitive  Yes.  John  the  Baptist  was 
to  have  the  signal  honor,  the  imperishable 
glory,  of  revealing  Jesus  to  himself,  of 
helping  him  to  hear  God,  of  forcing  upon 
liim  the  conviction:  ''I  am  the  Messiah, 
and  the  hour  for  action  has  come."     The 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  117 

Father's  hour  was  to  strike  at  the  never 
to  be  forgotten  moment  of  his  baptism. 
John  the  Baptist  was  on  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan ;  he  was  moving  the  people ;  he  was 
about  to  move  the  very  soul  of  Jesus. 


VIII 
JESUS   AND    JOHN    THE   BAPTIST 


CHAPTER   VIII 

JESUS   AND   JOHN    THE    BAPTIST 

T^HE  only  lasting  influence  which  was 
exerted  upon  Jesus  was  that  of 
John  the  Baptist.  Certainly  he  also  was 
to  be  surpassed  some  day ;  but  just  here, 
above  all  things,  in  separating  himself 
from  John,  Jesus  kept  the  best  that  the 
latter  had  given  him;  and  through  his 
whole  life  he  retained  a  remembrance  of 
John  full  of  gratitude  and  admiration. 
Behind  Luther  was  Staupitz;  and  there 
are  few  men  who  have  exerted  a  great 
influence  who  have  not  had  their  pre- 
cursors. 

As  Jesus  drew  near  to  his  thirtieth  year, 
he  heard  about  this  young  and  pious 
ascetic,  full  of  ardor,  who  was  called  John 
the  Baptist,  and  whose  moral  and  religious 
influence  had  in  a  short  time  become  re- 
markable. Jesus  immediately  had  a  very 
clear  intuition  that  he  had  much  to  learn 


122  JESUS  CHRIST 

from  tliis  man,  and,  quitting  Nazareth  with 
a  few  disciples,  his  relatives  or  his  friends, 
he  set  out  to  see  and  hear  him. 

John  —  or,  more  correctly,  Johanan  — 
was  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  at  the 
boundary  of  the  wilderness  of  Judea  as 
one  comes  from  Galilee,  in  a  sequestered 
valley,  covered  with  a  vigorous  vegetation, 
in  the  midst  of  tamarisks  and  willows.  He 
was  preaching  there,  in  words  of  a  rough 
and  aggressive  eloquence  which  exerted  a 
strange  influence.  People  came  in  crowds 
to  hear  him. 

At  first  Jesus  mingled  with  the  crowd 
and  listened  like  the  others.  He  heard 
John  pronounce  long  discourses,  impas- 
sioned and  fiery,  the  principal  theme  being 
the  oft  repeated  words,  "Repent,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  handl''^  No 
miracle  accompanied  these  words.  John 
did  no  miracles,  and  made  no  pretension  of 
doing  any.  It  is  not  said  that  sick  people 
were  brought  to  him  or  that  he  busied 
himself  with  healing.  He  was  concerned 
only  with  a  moral  regeneration.  Never- 
theless, he  performed  one  religious  act, 
though  only  one,  —  baptism.  Those  among 
1  Matt.  iii.  2,  and  parallel  passages. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  123 

his  auditors  who  desired  moral  regeneration 
and  confessed  their  sins  were  led  by  him 
to  the  river  Jordan.  There  he  baptized 
them;  that  is  to  say,  he  effected  a  com- 
plete immersion  of  their  whole  body  in  the 
water.     It  was  his  only  rite. 

This  baptism  was  not  a  mere  sign, 
designed  to  make  an  impression  on  the 
multitude,  but  also  a  preparation  and  con- 
secration for  the  kingdom  of  God,  M'hich 
was  imminent.  It  created  a  bond  between 
all  John's  disciples.  It  testified  to  the 
renunciation  of  the  former  life,  entrance 
into  a  new  life,  and,  above  all,  the  ardor 
of  the  Messianic  hope.  John  was  con- 
vinced that  the  hour  of  Jehovah  was  about 
to  strike. 

John  was  a  Universalist.  While  contin- 
uing to  be  a  Jew,  he  foresaw  and  preached 
a  reaction  against  the  narrowness  of  cer- 
tain Pharisees.  He  said,  "  God  is  able  of 
these  stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abra- 
ham," 1  which  was  the  same  as  saying  that 
one  could  be  the  son  of  Abraham  without 
descending  from  Abraham. 

All  this  Jesus  saw  and  heard.  The 
impression   that  he  received  from  it  was 

1  Luke  iii.  8. 


124  JESUS    CHRIST 

very  profound.  That  which  first  struck 
him  was  that  John  was  not  an  ordinary- 
anchorite.  For  he  was  not  concerned  with 
his  own  sanctification,  but  solely  with  the 
sins  of  his  nation.  Next  he  was  impressed 
by  the  conviction  with  which  the  soul  of 
John  was  filled,  that  he  had  a  mission  to 
accomplish,  that  he  held  it  from  God  alone, 
and  that  only  he  could  do  it.  Jesus  was 
not  long  in  arriving  at  the  certainty  that 
the  prediction  of  the  second  coming  of 
Elias  made  by  the  Scribes  had  received  its 
accomplishment  in  the  person  of  John  the 
Baptist.  "This  is  he,"  he  said,  "who  is 
Elias  that  was  to  come."^  Upon  this 
important  point  he  never  wavered; 
to  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  persuaded 
that  John  had  been  the  personification  of 
Elias.  This  is  the  more  remarkable  since 
John  himself  refused  to  be  taken  for  Elias, 
and  declared  that  he  was  not  Elias. ^  We 
do  not  know  whether  or  not  Jesus  was 
aware  of  this  denial  by  John  the  Baptist. 
In  any  case,  he  retained  his  opinion. 

Very  soon  he  felt  himself  entirely  won 
over;  everything  in  the  person  and  work 

1  Matt.  xi.  14,  and  parallel  passages. 

2  John  i.  21. 


BEFORE   HIS   MINISTRY  125 

of  this  reraarkal)le  man  inspired  him  with 
confidence.  From  tlie  place  of  hearer  he 
passed  into  that  of  friend.  He  entered 
into  relations  with  John,  and  their  associa- 
tion at  once  became  very  close  and  very 
affectionate.  Jesus  loved  his  suhstitntion 
of  a  private  rite  for  legal  ceremonial;  he 
loved  his  preaching,  which  harmonized  so 
well  with  all  that  he  himself  experienced. 

John  spoke  against  rich  priests,  against 
prevaricating  Pharisees,  against  formalist 
Doctors  of  the  Law,  —  against  the  whole 
official  community,  asleep  in  a  false  and 
delusive  security.  He  expressed  with  un- 
equalled boldness  and  courage  that  which 
Jesus  had  long  been  thinking. 

Jesus  found  in  John's  utterances  all  that 
was  best  in  Essenian  doctrine,  and  he  found 
in  them  nothing  of  that  which  had  dis- 
pleased him  in  that  doctrine.  John  the 
Baptist  had  certainly  known  and  studied 
Essenism;  he  borrowed  much  from  it, 
even  going  so  far  as  to  advocate  a  sort 
of  community  of  goods ;  ^  but  he  had 
never  desired  to  be  of  their  number.  He 
was  too  independent  and  too  original  to 
affiliate  himself  with  a  sect  and  an  estab- 

1  Luke  iii.  10,  11. 


126  JESUS   CHRIST 

lished  order.  He  indignantly  repelled  the 
formalism  and  legalism  of  the  Essenes. 
In  his  view,  baptism  Avas  to  be  administered 
only  once,  — "one  baptism;  "  this  also  be- 
came the  Christian  doctrine.^ 

Jesus  loved  and  admired  this  free 
Essene,  detaching  himself  from  cloistered 
Essenism,  issuing  from  his  retreat  out  of 
the  fulness  of  his  compassion  for  perishing 
souls,  and  uttering  his  magnificent  cry  of 
alarm  and  hope ! 

Listening  to  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus 
took  lessons  in  preaching  and  in  popular 
oratory;  his  ideas  about  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  the  good  news  to  come  began  to 
ripen.  Everything  here  was  instructive 
and  suggestive;  we  can  understand  the 
great  emotion  which  took  possession  of 
him,  and  how  he  was  impelled  to  say, 
"This  is  Elias  that  was  to  come." 

At  last  Jesus  took  the  decisive  step. 
He  asked  for  and  received  baptism.  He 
was  urged  to  this  by  divers  motives,  eas}^ 

1  Eph.  iv.  5.  Nevertheless,  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  "baptisms"  are  spoken  of  in  the  plural 
(vi.  2),  and  the  author  appears  to  consider  it  quite  as 
important  for  those  who  would  approach  God  to 
have  tlie  bodj'  washed  in  pure  water  as  to  have  the 
heart  and  conscience  purified  from  all  evil  (x.  22). 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  127 

to  understand.  In  the  first  place,  he 
desired  to  show  his  entire  adherence  to 
John's  work.  More  than  this,  he  desired 
to  take  his  place  also  among  the  insignifi- 
cant and  humble  ones  who  were  breaking 
with  the  past,  declaring  that  the  time  was 
fulfilled,  and  a  new  era  about  to  begin. 
And  finally,  Jesus  had  decided  to  preach 
like  John,  to  leave  Nazareth  and  go  up 
and  down  the  country,  sapng,  like  the 
Baptist,  "Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand."  Therefore  he  must  be 
baptized. 

This  act  which  he  purposed,  this  humili- 
ation which  he  was  about  to  impose  on 
himself,  taking  his  place  in  all  simplicity 
and  love  of  sinners  in  the  ranks  of  those 
who  confess  their  faults,  was  to  receive  at 
once  a  magnificent  reward.  At  the  precise 
moment  when  he  was  coming  up  out  of  the 
water  his  Messianic  dignity  was  revealed 
to  him.  In  fact,  his  baptism  marks  the 
awakening  of  his  Messianic  consciousness. 
What  he  had  already  foreboded  was  now 
affirmed.  The  question  Avhich  for  some 
time  he  had  been  asking  himself,  "  Might 
it  be  I  ?  "  received  its  answer.  The  inward 
crisis  through  wliich  he  was  passing  came 


128  JESUS   CHRIST 

to  its  acme  and  reached  its  end.  He  heard 
the  voice  of  God  saying  to  him  clearly, 
"Thou  art  my  well  beloved  son."  The 
voice  resounded  to  the  depths  of  his  soul. 
Jesus  heard  God.  We  cannot  for  an  in- 
stant doubt  it;  for  from  this  sacred  hour 
his  conviction  Avas  not  to  be  shaken.  It 
was  an  absolute  certainty;  nothing  could 
thenceforth  weaken  it. 

He  had  come  to  the  point  where  he 
could  say,  "I  am  the  Messiah,"  because, 
feeling  himself  the  child  of  the  Father,  he 
experienced  an  irresistible  desire  to  realize 
among  men  this  divine  sonship.  The 
development  of  his  moral  consciousness 
had  brought  him  to  this  definite  convic- 
tion, to  a  certitude  which  to  him  bore  the 
marks  of  absolute  evidence. 

But  what  kind  of  Messiah  was  he  to  be  ? 
What  work  was  he  to  accomplish  ?  This 
question  he  put  to  himself,  and  went  on 
to  seek  for  its  answer.  More  and  more 
convinced  that  in  listening  to  the  Baptist 
and  carrying  on  a  work  like  his  he  would 
be  in  the  right  way,  he  immediately  began 
to  imitate  John.  After  receiving  baptism, 
he  in  his  turn  conferred  it.  The  few 
disciples    whom    he    had    brought    from 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  129 

Nazareth,  and  who  also  had  been  bap- 
tized, did  the  same  thing,  and  the  banks  of 
the  Jordan  were  covered  with  baptizers.^ 

It  was  not  long  before  a  new  light  shone 
into  the  soul  of  Jesus.  Asking  himself 
what  kind  of  Messiah  he  should  be,  and 
what  his  work,  he  began  to  understand, 
though  not  yet  able  to  answer  his  own 
question,  that  John's  preaching  no  longer 
sufficed  for  him,  and  that  he  must  carry 
John's  work  farther.  He  perceived  that, 
with  all  his  greatness,  John  was  still  the 
man  of  the  past,  and  of  a  past  which  he 
could  not  break  with.  The  Baptist's  infe- 
riority became  apparent  to  him.  He  was 
compelled  to  leave  him  behind;  certainly 
John  could  never  go  to  the  end  of  the  way. 
In  his  predictions  of  the  work  and  office  of 
the  coming  Messiah  there  were  features 
which  Jesus  could  not  accept.  John  could 
not  and  would  not  break  with  the  tradi- 
tional notion  of  the  Messiah.  He  looked 
for  a  king  of  glory ;  he  was  always  talking 
of  a  Judgment,  of  vengeance,  and  a  reign 
of  iron. 

But  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  reigning  by 
force  inspired  in  Jesus  an  invincible  repug- 

1  John  iii.  22-26;  iv.  1,2. 


130  JESUS  CHRIST 

nance.  He  must  work  this  out;  he  must 
ask  his  Father,  he  must  spend  forty  days 
in  the  desert;  and  though  he  did  not  yet 
know  what  would  be  the  outcome  of  this 
struggle,  he  well  knew  one  thing,  —  that 
he  should  not  issue  from  it  the  Messiah 
whom  John  persisted  in  preaching. 

No  longer  feeling  himself  in  accord  with 
John,  his  first  care  was  to  baptize  no 
longer.  Nevertheless  he  permitted  his  dis- 
ciples to  baptize,^  —  a  slight  indication 
which  well  reveals  the  hesitations  of  his 
soul. 

But  he  must  put  an  end  to  these  hesita- 
tions; he  must  examine  John's  ideas  con- 
cerning the  Messiah,  and  he  must  ask 
himself  seriously  what  sort  of  Messiah  he 
himself  ought  to  be.  He  must  enter  upon 
a  conflict  and  achieve  a  victory  which 
the  Baptist  could  neither  enter  upon  nor 
achieve. 

It  is  of  the  agonizing  and  terrible  con- 
flict which  preceded  the  victory  that  we 
have  now  to  speak.  Jesus,  having  given 
up  baptizing,  and  knowing  that  he  was  the 
Messiah,  felt  that  the  question  of  questions 
was  being  put  to  him  with  ever-growing 

1  John  iv.  1,  2. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  131 

urgency,  "What  kind  of  Messiah  shall  I 
be  ?  "  And  so  he  retired  to  the  desert,  and 
the  temptation  began. 

The  day  would  come  Avhen  Jesus  would 
pronounce  the  final  opinion  concerning 
John:  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Among 
them  that  are  born  of  woman  there  hath 
not  arisen  a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist : 
nevertheless,  he  that  is  but  little  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he."* 
That  is  to  say :  I  admire  him  still ;  I  sub- 
tract nothing  from  my  early  admiration  of 
him ;  I  deny  nothing  of  our  long  associa- 
tion and  our  close  intimacy.  John  is 
Elias;  he  is  my  forerunner.  Among  the 
sons  of  the  men  of  the  past  there  has  not 
been  born  one  greater  than  he.  He  is  more 
than  a  prophet.  But  he  would  not  see 
in  me  the  Messiah  whom  he  himself  an- 
nounced. He  is  lower  than  the  least  of 
my  disciples.  He  is  not  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  for  he  has  found  in  me  an  occa- 
sion for  scandal. 

Jesus   then   parted  from  John,   but  he 

never  forgot  him.     The  vision  of  the  desert 

where  he  had  gone  to  see  and  hear  this 

man  was  never  effaced  from  his  memory. 

1  Matt.  xi.  11. 


132  JESUS   CHRIST 

A  few  days  before  his  death  he  was  still 
speaking  to  the  Pharisees  of  John's  bap- 
tism, and  his  preaching  made  such  an 
impression  upon  him  that  to  the  very  close 
of  his  life  bits  of  phrases  and  some  of  the 
favorite  expressions  of  the  Baptist  appeared 
here  and  there  in  his  own  discourses.^ 

He  was  therefore  always  grateful  to 
him;  but  while  he  felt  the  greatness  of 
John  the  Baptist,  he  also  felt  most  vividly 
all  in  which  he  was  wanting. 

John  the  Baptist  belonged  entirely  to  a 
past  which  must  inevitably  disappear.  He 
had  preached  only  a  moral  reformation, 
based  upon  the  ancient  theocracy  of  Israel, 
and  he  always  clung  too  closely  to  ritual. 
Jesus,  on  his  part,  had  discerned  the  eter- 
nal element  in  the  Baptist's  preaching 
and  work,  and  when  he  applied  to  him  his 
ordinary  method  he  perceived  that  John 
was  sewing  new  cloth  upon  old  garments, 
putting  new  wine  into  old  and  worn-out 
wine-skins,  which  were  ready  to  burst. '^ 

1  Matt.  xii.  34 ;  xxiii.  .33 ;  etc. 

2  Some  persons  will  no  doubt  think  that  there  is 
more  than  this  to  say  about  the  Baptist ;  they  will  cite 
to  me,  for  example,  that  utterance  of  his,  reported  in 
the  fourth  Gospel,  "  Eeliold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world."    I  reply  to  these 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  133 

John  the  Baptist,  on  his  side,  kept  his 
disciples,  and  they  remained  independent 
of  the  Christian  movement.  ^ 

persons  in  advance  that  my  intention  has  not  been  to 
write  a  complete  monograph  on  the  Forerunner,  and 
that  I  had  no  occasion  to  say  what  John  the  Baptist 
may  have  thouglit  of  Jesus  at  one  or  another  moment 
of  his  life.  I  had  simply  to  ask  what  Jesus  thought  of 
John  the  Baptist. 

1  Matt.  ix.  14;  Mark  ii.  18;  Luke  v.  33,xri.  1;  John 
iii.  26 ;  Matt.  xiv.  12 ;  Acts  xviii.  24  ff.,  xix.  2  ff. 


IX 

THE  MESSIANIC  IDEAL  OF  JESUS 
AT   THIRTY   YEARS   OF   AGE 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    MESSIANIC    IDEAL   OF    JESUS    AT    THIRTY 
YEARS   OF   AGE 

T  MMEDIATELY  after  the  revelation  of 
the  baptism  the  temptation  began. 
He  was  the  Messiah!  But  others  had 
believed  themselves  to  be  the  Messiah  and 
had  been  mistaken !  The  great  "  Hope  of 
Israel  "  had  thrown  many  of  his  contem- 
poraries into  frenzy.  Was  he  to  be  one  of 
these  ?  Was  he  in  his  turn  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  a  tremendous  illusion?  And  if  he 
was  not  mad,  was  he  not  to  become  so  ? 

The  minds  of  his  compatriots  were 
becoming  excited,  their  imaginations  in- 
flamed; the  great  word  "  Messiah  "  had  led 
astray  more  than  one  ill-balanced  mind. 
Some  had  dared  to  appropriate  it  to  them- 
selves, and  they  had  ended  in  insanity. 
And  now  he  in  his  turn  had  received  the 
dreadful  heritage.     He   was   to  follow  in 


138  JESUS   CHRIST 

the  same  way  I  The  temptation,  the  danger, 
were  supreme. 

He  would  avoid  the  danger,  and  triumph 
over  the  temptation.  But  for  tliis  he  must 
undergo  a  great  conflict.  It  was  to  be 
an  inward  battle,  from  which  he  was  to 
come  off  conqueror.  The  Gospel  stories  ^ 
have  brought  down  to  us  its  sublime  and 
magnificent  echo. 

For  indeed  the  temptation  was  not  an 
isolated  and  momentary  experience.  It 
extended  over  all  that  part  of  Jesus'  life 
which  immediately  followed  his  baptism. 
The  Evangelists  assign  to  it  a  duration 
of  forty  days.  The  number  is  symbolical, 
like  the  whole  narrative.  During  forty 
days,  and  no  doubt  a  much  longer  time, 
Jesus  had  been  asking  himself  what  kind 
of  Messiah  he  should  be.  The  picturesque 
narrative  of  the  Evangelists  admirably  de- 
scribes the  conflict  through  which  his  soul 
was  passing,  and  the  struggles  which  he 
underwent. 

For  some  time  past  he  had  been  gradually 
assuming  an  attitude  of  growing  reserve 
with  respect  of  the  "Hope  of  Israel." 
Before  his  baptism,  during  the   years  of 

1  Matt.  It.  1  ff. ;  Luke  ir.  1  ff. 


BEFORE   HIS   MINISTRY  139 

solitude  spent  at  Nazareth,  the  thought 
had  presented  itself  to  him:  What  if  I 
were  the  Messiah!  It  had  pursued  him; 
he  had  sought  to  avoid  it,  and  he  had 
waited  with  a  prudence  that  cannot  be  too 
much  admired,  —  waited  because  he  dis- 
trusted himself.  Now  he  knew  he  was  the 
Messiah,  and  he  could  no  longer  escape 
the  struggle.  It  came.  It  was  terrible; 
it  was  a  gigantic  battle,  out  of  which  he 
came  forth  conqueror.  His  conscience  was 
its  battlefield ;  his  triumph  in  it  such  that 
the  temptation  never  again  assailed  him. 

Over  what  did  he  triumph?  Over  false 
ideas,  over  the  erroneous  notions  of  his 
contemporaries,  over  all  that  he  had  be- 
lieved and  expected  in  common  with  his 
entire  people. 

At  this  point  we  must  be  precise,  and 
state  what  was  the  "  Messianic  Idea  "  which 
the  Jewish  Apocalypses  had  taught  him  as 
the  truth  itself,  — ■  what  was  this  wild  hope, 
this  dazzling  dream,  whose  vision  had  been 
haunting  his  nation  for  so  many  years. 
Next  we  must  ask  what  he  did  with  it 
during  those  days  of  conflict  in  the  desert; 
and  we  sliall  see  that,  faithful  to  his  con- 
stant method,  he  had  rejected  one  part  of 


140  JESUS   CHRIST 

it  and  preserved  another.  Here  again  he 
abolished  nothing,  he  fulfilled  everything. 

What,  then,  had  he  up  to  this  time 
believed,  in  common  with  all  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  what  was  taking  place  in 
his  soul  at  the  precise  moment  when  he  had 
just  learned  that  he  was  the  Messiah  ? 

He  had  believed  that  the  Jews  were  a 
privileged  people,  whose  privilege  it  was 
to  have  God  himself  for  king.^  Every 
day  he  recited  these  words  of  the  Shemone 
Esre :  "Be  King  over  us,  Thou  alone,  O 
Lord!  "2  Like  all  the  pious  men  of  his 
time,  he  had  certainly  often  said  that  God 
was  the  only  King  of  Israel.^  The  Jewish 
people  were  therefore  the  kingdom  of  God ; 
but  they  had  fallen  into  the  power  of  the 
Gentiles,  "sinners,"  "the  wicked,"  and 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  not  what  it  was 
intended  to  be.  When  the  Romans  were 
driven  out,  the  true  kingdom  of  God  would 
be  established. 

It  was  an  ideal  for  the  future.  God,  the 
King,  had  for  a  time  given  over  his  rights 
to  the  Gentiles,  but  the  time  was  at  hand 

1  Psalter  of  Solomon,  xvii.  1,  61. 

^  Eleventh  Benediction. 

'  See  Josephus,  Ant.  xviii.  1,  6,  and  Want,  ii.  8,  1. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  141 

when  this  state  of  things  would  cease. 
Daniel  had  affirmed  it  in  his  prophecies; 
therefore  his  book  was  pondered  more  than 
any  other,  and  Ave  have  already  said  that 
during  long  years  it  had  certainly  been  the 
object  of  Jesus'  constant  studj*.  The 
future  kingdom  would  be  universal,^ 
Daniel  had  said;  and  Jesus  believed  what 
this  book  taught.  Again,  Daniel  said  that 
the  Gentile  kingdoms  should  disappear, 
and  the  sovereignty  should  be  exercised 
by  pious  and  believing  Jews,  who  would 
have  at  their  head  a  mysterious  personage 
come  down  from  the  skies,  to  be  the  head 
of  the  new  Israel,  ruler  of  the  world.  All 
peoples  of  the  earth  Avould  be  subject  to 
the  Jews. 2  This  idea  of  Daniel  had  so 
thoroughly  penetrated  the  minds  of  the 
Jews  of  the  first  century  that,  as  we  have 
shown,  all  the  Apocrj-phas  and  Pseud- 
epigraphs  which  Jesus  read,^  in  all  proba- 
bility clearly  taught  it.* 

1  Dan.  vii.  14.  2  Dan.  vii.  1.3-28. 

8  At  least  those  which  were  composed  before  his 
day ;  but  the  date  of  some  of  them  is  still  undeter- 
mined, and  these  may  be  posterior  to  Christ.  In  every 
case  (and  this  is  the  essential  thing)  they  express 
ideas  which  were  popular  in  tiie  time  of  Jesus. 

♦  1  Mace.  ii.  67,  iv.  46,  xiv.  41 ;  2  Mace.  vii.  9,  xiii. 


142  JESUS   CHRIST 

The  advent  of  this  kingdom  would  in- 
augurate the  coming  age,  and  would  man- 
ifest itself  by  a  Judgment  which  would 
precede  its  establishment.  John  the  Bap- 
tist had  come,  and  had  preached  this  with 
the  ardor  and  conviction  of  a  Seer.  He 
was  not  mistaken.  For  he  had  said. 
First  the  Judgment;  and  this  Judgment 
was  imminent.^  It  would  be  marked 
by  the  defeat  of  the  Gentiles  and  the 
supremacy  of  the  Jews.  Not  only  did 
Jesus  believe  that  John  the  Baptist  was 
not  mistaken;  he  was  persuaded  that  he 
was  the  Elias  who  was  to  have  come,  and 
that  he  himself,  Jesus,  was  the  Messiah. 
He  thought,  then,  that  the  history  of  his 
people  and  of  the  world  was  just  at  the 
moment  when  the  travail  pangs  of  the 
Messianic  epoch  were  to  begin,  since  Elias 
was  already  there,  and  the  Messiah  was 
already  born.  He  must,  in  fact,  be  born 
before  the  Messianic  Judgment,  and  not 
after  it.''' 

4 ;  Judith  ix.  12 ;  Eccl.  v.  26,  xlvii.  13 ;  Baruch  iv.  23, 
V.  2-4,  XXV.  49 ;  Wisdom  iii.  8,  v.  16 ;  the  oldest  frag- 
ment of  the  Book  of  Enoch  xc.  29-42,  xci.  12,  17 ; 
Similitudes  xxxix.  1-8,5-51. 

^  Matt.  iii.  10-12 ;  Luke  iii.  7-9;  seealsoLukexix.il. 

2  Syb.  Orac.  in.  652-056  ;  Psal.  Sol.  xvii.  24,  26,  27, 
31,  38,  39,  41,  etc. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  143 

Now,  what  was  about  to  take  place  ?  A 
last  assault  of  the  Gentiles  against  the  Mes- 
siah. But  they  would  not  he  victorious; 
that  was  impossible.  On  the  contrary, 
they  would  be  all  but  blotted  out  by  a 
terrible  Judgment;  the  survivors  would 
be  converted  and  the  dispersed  Jews 
brought  back  again.  Thus  were  all  the 
acts  of  the  great  drama  fixed  in  a  rigorous 
order. 

When  all  the  scenes  which  have  just 
been  described  should  have  been  carried 
out,  then,  and  then  alone,  would  the  king- 
dom of  God  be  founded.  Its  seat  would 
be  Palestine,  and  from  there  it  would 
extend  itself  over  the  whole  world.  The 
earth  would  be  entirely  subject  to  the 
children  of  Israel.  An  era  of  supreme 
felicity  would  begin:  the  ground  would 
be  of  surprising  fertility;  men  would  be 
rich  and  happy,  and  would  live  a  thousand 
years ;  women  would  bring  forth  children 
without  pain;  the  harvesters  would  no 
longer  suffer  weariness;  there  would  be 
no  injustice  committed  among  the  elect 
people ;  all  men  would  be  holy,  and  their 
life  a  perpetual  worship.  It  would  be  the 
Palingenesis,  the  Renewal  of  all  things. 


144  JESUS   CHRIST 

As  to  the  exact  epoch  when  the  Palin- 
genesis was  to  begin,  all  were  not  in  accord. 
Some  made  it  coincide,  as  we  have  just 
said,  with  the  Messianic  Kingdom;  others 
placed  it  later,  in  what  they  called  Aolam- 
aha,  the  age  to  come.  Traces  of  this 
divergence  are  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament.  Sometimes  it  is  said  that  the 
Kingdom  shall  be  founded  in  the  present 
age,  in  the  actual  world ;  ^  at  others  it  is 
placed  in  the  age  to  come.^  In  any  case, 
one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Palin- 
genesis would  be  the  Resurrection  of  the 
dead,  accompanied  by  a  final,  universal 
judgment,  the  result  of  which  would  be, 
for  some,  condemnation  and  torment  in 
Gehenna;  for  others,  life  eternal  and  re- 
wards in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

This  teaching  Jesus  had  received ;  he  was 
now  called  to  judge  of  it.  It  was  necessary 
that  he  should  divide  between  the  true 
and  the  false,  and  take,  as  Messiah,  a 
definitive  attitude  with  respect  to  these 
Messianic  beliefs  which  every  one  accepted 
as  indisputable  verities. 

He  also  ^vould  proclaim  the  kingdom  of 

1  Luke  xix.  11 ;  xxiv.  21. 

2  Matt.  xxiv.  3 ;  Mark  xiii.  4. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  145 

of  God,  and  he  would  call  it  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  (Malekat  hash-shamayim).  In  this 
he  would  simply  imitate  his  contemporaries, 
with  whom  the  two  expressions  were  abso- 
lutely synonymous,  and  who  used  the 
second  simply  to  avoid  pronouncing  the 
sacred  name  of  Jehovah,  or  even  the  names 
Elohim  and  Adonai.^  Jesus  would  do  the 
same.  He  would  also  consider  the  king- 
dom as  to  come.  He  would  say,  "The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  In  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  from  which  we  must 
date  the  precepts  of  the  first  part  of  his 
ministry,  all  the  rewards  promised  to  those 
who  are  worthy  of  the  kingdom  are  reserved 
for  them  in  the  future.  "You  shall  be 
filled;  you  shall  laugh  ;  they  shall  see 
God,"  etc.  He  would  teach  his  disciples 
to  say  "  Thy  kingdom  come."  ^  The  king- 
dom of  heaven  was  therefore  not  yet  come. 

^  We  say  the  same  in  Frcncli ,  —  "  Heaven  keep  me 
from  it ! "  "  Would  to  Heaven  that,"  for  "  God  keep 
me  from  it ! "  "  Would  to  God  that "  ;  and  the  word 
"  heaven  "  in  the  expression  "  kingdom  of  heaven  " 
never  signified  the  abode  of  the  blessed  after  this  life. 
Let  us  add  that  this  expression,  "kingdom of  heaven," 
was  very  happily  chosen,  since  "  the  Father  is  in 
heaven,"  and  his  kingdom  to  come  must  come  down 
to  be  established  on  earth  by  the  Messiah. 

a  Matt.  V.  4  ff. ;  Luke  vi.  21  ff. 

8  Matt.  vi.  10 ;  Luke  xi.  2. 
10 


146  JESUS   CHRIST 

We  have  not  here  to  ask  if  at  a  later 
day,  in  the  midst  of  his  ministry,  Jesus  did 
not  announce  the  kingdom  as  present.  ^ 
At  the  time  which  we  are  considering,  the 
time  of  the  Temptation,  all  the  evidence 
shows  that  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  the  king- 
dom was  still  to  come.  Nothing  indicates 
that  he  did  not  connect  this  kingdom  to 
come  with  a  second  coming  of  his  own,  a 
glorious  coming,  by  which  he  should  es- 
tablish the  kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth. 

Up  to  this  time  Jesus  had,  at  least  to  all 
appearance,  rejected  nothing  of  what  his 
contemporaries  taught.  What,  then,  was 
the  temptation?  What  was  the  victory 
achieved  by  him  in  the  terrible  conflict  in 
which  he  triumphed  ? 

The  Gospels  expressly  distinguish  three 
conflicts  and  three  victories.  In  the  first 
Satan  counselled  Jesus  to  make  stones  into 
bread;  that  is  to  say,  to  live  for  himself, 
make  things  subservient  to  him,  seek  his 
own  glory.  The  temptation  was  formi- 
dable because  it  accords  with  what  the 
Jewish  Messiah  was  expected  to  be;  he 
was  to  be  a  Master  and  a  King:  to  come  to 
his  throne  through  blood,  if  necessar}^  and, 

1  Matt.  xii.  28  ;  Luke  xi.  20. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  147 

in  any  case,  to  seat  himself  upon  a  veritable 
throne.  Jesus  repelled  such  a  thought. 
He  declared  that  he  would  not  seek  to  he 
served,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  would 
serve.  Here  he  had  a  clear  notion  of  true 
greatness,  and  he,  first  of  all,  gave  it  to  the 
world.  This  truth,  to-day  so  elementary, 
that  the  great  man  is  not  he  who  is  served 
but  he  who  renders  service,  was  fii-st 
affirmed  by  Jesus  in  his  words  and  in  his 
life.  "Whosoever  would  become  great 
among  you  let  liim  be  your  servant."^ 

By  triumphing  over  this  temptation 
Jesus  conquered  a  place  which  he  will 
always  keep,  and  which  a  multitude  of  his 
precepts  attest.  He  opposed  to  the  pop- 
ular ideal  another  ideal, —  that  of  renuncia- 
tion and  sacrifice,  that  of  obedience  to  the 
Father,  whatever  might  be  his  will. 

But  now  comes  the  second  temptation. 
Satan  said  to  him,  "  Throw  thyself  from  a 
pinnacle  of  the  Temple,"  —  that  is  to  say, 
dazzle  the  world,  fascinate  it  by  your 
genius,  overawe  it  by  your  power;  for 
the  Jewish  Messiah  was  expected  to  domi- 
nate and  awe.  Now,  Jesus  had  read  and 
reread  Apocalypses  full  of  transparent  alle- 

1  Matt.  XX.  20  f.,  and  parallel  passages. 


148  JESUS   CHRIST 

gories  and  obvious  imagery  whence  it  was 
to  be  drawn  that  the  expected  Liberator 
was,  in  fact,  to  use  constraint  and  even  vio- 
lence, and  put  his  enemies  beneath  his  feet. 
Ah !  this  temptation  much  allured  him :  to 
dazzle  by  prodigies,  to  command  belief  by 
sensible  or  intellectual  evidence,  to  be 
the  undisputed  master  of  the  humble, 
for  whom  he  feels  himself  full  of  such  an 
infinite  compassion,  and  thus  to  serve 
them ! 

He  repelled  it;  he  would  have  no  other 
weapon  than  words,  no  other  prestige  than 
persuasion,  no  other  talisman  than  love. 
He  would  reign  only  over  hearts.  The 
kingdom  of  God  should  be  spiritual,  in- 
visible, purely  moral.  It  should  be  wher- 
ever repentance  and  a  new  birth  of  the  soul 
were  found.  There  should  be  no  sudden 
and  startling  appearance,  as  the  Jews 
would  have  it,  but  the  slow  and  blessed 
action  of  the  mere  word  of  the  Messiah; 
for  it  was  not  exterior  reforms  that  would 
save  the  world.  It  was  first  of  all  necessary 
that  hearts  should  be  changed ;  after  that 
exterior  reforms  would  come  of  themselves 
as  a  natural  consequence.  The  Messiah 
would  work  no  magical  transformation. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  149 

Here,  for  the  second  time,  Jesus  put 
himself  in  absolute  opposition  to  the  ideas 
of  his  time,  and,  far  from  permitting  him- 
self to  be  led  away  by  the  Messianic  beliefs 
of  his  people,  he  resisted  them.  It  should 
be  the  meek,  the  gentle,  who  should  inherit 
the  earth;  and  at  the  time  when  he  pro- 
claimed with  greatest  energy  his  kingdom 
and  his  Messianic  dignity,  he  made  no 
allusion,  not  the  slightest,  to  the  allegories 
with  which  the  Apocalypses  of  his  people 
were  filled.^  He  did  not  even  make  use 
of  allegorical  language;  his  speech  was 
always  simple,  unpretentious,  popular. 

This  was  not  all:  he  had  a  third  victory 
to  achicA^e.  In  a  dazzling  vision  Satan 
showed  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  their  glory,  for  his  people  were  ex- 
pecting a  political  power.  And  then 
Jesus  asked  himself  if  it  ought  not  to  be 
thus  with  his  kingdom;  for  he  loved  his 
people,  and  ardently  desired  that  they 
might  be  delivered  from  the  Romans. 
Should  he  then  mingle  politics  and  religion  ? 
Never.  He  would  separate  them.  He 
absolutely  repudiated  all  political  preten- 

^  Save  the  evident  allusions  to  the  allegories  of 
Daniel.     Mark  xiii.  and  parallel  passages. 


150  JESUS   CHRIST 

sions.  He  would  not  have  a  terrestrial 
kingdom ;  to  think  of  it  was  a  suggestion 
of  Satan.  He  would  accept  one  sole  king- 
dom, —  the  divine  kingdom  of  the  love 
wliich  would  go  whithersoever  his  Father 
might  judge  good.  Might  it  be  even  to 
martyrdom?  He  knew  not.  Did  he  see 
a  cross  uprising  at  the  end  of  the  pathway 
of  life  ?  Not  yet.  But  if  such  should  be 
the  will  of  the  Father,  he  was  ready;  and 
when  the  day  should  come  he  should  per- 
ceive the  accursed  tree,  he  would  more 
than  ever  insist  that  he  was  the  Messiah. 
At  the  present  hour  he  as  yet  knew  noth- 
ing of  this;  on  the  contrary,  he  firmly 
hoped  to  deliver  his  people  by  some  other 
means. 

Jesus,  then,  was  about  to  offer  himself 
as  the  Messiah  promised  by  the  prophets. 
The  latter  had  announced  that  a  divine 
messenger  would  come  to  establish  the 
reign  of  Jehovah  at  Jerusalem  and  upon 
the  earth.  He  was  this  divine  messenger; 
he  was  the  Son  of  the  Father  who  is  in 
heaven,  and  he  would  realize  his  kingdom 
by  asking  for  faith  in  himself.  If  the 
Jews  rejected  him,  if  they  wrought  his  de- 
struction, he  would  carry,  even  to  the  cross, 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  151 

his  unshaken  trust  in  his  Father  and  in 
his  work.  Even  in  the  face  of  death  he 
woukl  still  be  convinced  that  he  should 
one  day  return  in  the  clouds  to  judge 
the  living  and  the  dead.  His  work 
would  be  the  sublime  coronation  of  proph- 
ecy; he  would  realize  the  national  hopes, 
he  would  be  the  hero  of  those  Jewish 
Apocalypses  whose  reading  had  nourished 
his  youth. 

It  was  thus  without  enthusiasm  or  ex- 
citement, but  after  long  deliberation,  with 
ripe  reflection,  that  he  took  vipon  himself 
to  carry  out  the  Messianic  work,  for  he 
had  transformed  it. 

The  temptation  was  ended,  and  he  had 
decided  to  undertake  the  conversion  of  his 
people.  But  though  he  was  ready  even 
for  death  itself,  in  thus  undertaking  it  he 
knew  not  that  his  mission  would  one  day 
require  tliis  of  him.  He  was  simply  the 
spiritual  and  moral  Messiah;  he  was  not 
yet  the  suffering  and  crucified  Messiah.  He 
would  serve ;  his  kingdom  should  be  estab- 
lished in  men's  hearts ;  he  would  accomplish 
only  a  religious  work.  On  these  three  points 
he  had  achieved  a  victory.  He  came  forth 
unscathed   from   this    triple  conflict;    and 


152  JESnS   CHRIST 

his  triumph  put  him  in  possession  of  a  new 
grandeur,  a  sublime  strength,  which  noth- 
ing could  abate.  The  Jewish  Messianic 
idea  vanished,  swallowed  up  in  his  three- 
fold victory. 

Yet  let  us  not  misconstrue  Jesus'  true 
thought.  If  his  kingdom  Avas  purely  spir- 
itual, if  he  separated  politics  from  religion, 
it  was  not  that  Jesus  had  hot  a  profound 
sympathy  with  the  national  hope  of  his 
people.  He  cherished  the  hope  that  the 
nation  would  understand  that  the  kingdom 
was  solely  religious,  and  yet  that  it  could 
be  at  the  same  time  the  national  kingdom 
predicted  by  the  prophets,  and  which  they 
all  expected.  He  hoped  to  found  in  the 
heart  of  his  nation,  by  pacific  means,  by 
persuasion  and  love,  a  kingdom  whose 
head  —  himself  —  would  be  acclaimed  by 
the  Pharisees.  No  doubt  he  had  no 
notion  how  the  Romans  could  be  done 
away  with  without  the  employment  of 
force;  perhaps,  like  his  contemporaries, 
he  counted  upon  a  miraculous  intervention 
of  the  Heavenly  Father.  But  it  is  evident 
that  he  chose  twelve  apostles  because  he 
looked  forward  to  the  national  restoration 
of  the   twelve  tribes,  and  in  consequence 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  153 

the  foundation  of  a  kingdom  on  earth, —  in 
tliis  sense  a  visible  kingdom.  He  afterward 
said  to  Peter,  "  now  in  this  time ;  "  ^  promis- 
ing him  a  brilliant  and  public  reward  in 
the  present  time  as  well  as  in  the  age  to 
come. 

I  will  go  farther,  and  say  that  this  hope 
did  not  leave  him  even  when  his  death  was 
certain.  He  did  not  oppose  the  request  of 
the  sons  of  Zebedee,^  nor  did  he  deny  that 
he  should  one  day  be  enthroned  in  glory, 
with  liis  apostles  beside  him.  His  martyr- 
dom was  no  doubt  to  precede  this  glorifica- 
tion ;  but  there  would  be  seats  on  his  right 
hand  and  on  his  left,  and  his  Father  would 
bestow  them.  When  in  Gethsemane  he 
said,  "Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this 
cup  pass  from  me,"^  this  prayer  had  no 
meaning  if  it  did  not  signify  that  he  hoped 
against  all  hope  that  his  kingdom  would  be 
founded  without  the  cross:  incomparably 
more  must  he  have  hoped  this  in  the 
days  of  his  temptation,  saying  to  himself. 
My  people  may  recognize  and  welcome  me. 
And  he   said  tliis  to  himself  until  the  end, 

1  Luke  xviii.  30  ;  Matt.  xix.  27-29. 

'^  Matt.  XX.  20  ff.,  and  parallel  passages. 

*  Matt.  xxvi.  39,  and  parallel  passages. 


154  JESUS  CHRIST 

always  believing  in  a  possible  change  of 
feeling, 

Jesus,  then,  always  thought  that  he  might 
be  recognized  as  the  national  Messiah  and 
religious  Liberator.  To  the  last  day  he 
tried  hard  to  gain  the  Jews,  and  cherished 
the  deathless  hope  that  his  people  would 
escape  the  catastrophe  of  the  year  70  by 
submitting  themselves  to  him. 

Therefore  he  gave  himself  entirely  to 
this  work,  in  wliich  he  displayed  an  inde- 
fatigable activity.  He  was  not  yet  saying, 
"The  Son  of  man  has  come  to  give  his 
life,"  for  he  believed  that  he  had  come  to 
found  his  kingdom  in  his  lifetime,  to  found 
it  by  his  merciful  and  holy  activity.  But 
he  did  say,  "  The  time  is  fulfilled."  i  The 
kingdom  was  imminent ;  it  was  even  already 
present  in  the  person  of  its  head. 

From  the  beginning  he  himself  had  the 
first  place  in  the  kingdom,  for  he  was 
"he  who  should  come;"  but  he  did  not 
yet  preach  himself ;  he  preached  only  "  the 
Gospel  of  the  kingdom,"  and  in  no  partic- 
ular broke  with  the  Pharisees.  The  rup- 
ture with  them  —  that  is,  with  Judaism,  for 
we  must  remember  that  the  Pharisees 
1  Mark  i.  15. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  165 

were  the  true  Judaism  —  was  not  to  come 
until  later.  For  the  moment  he  magnified 
Judaism,  he  fulfilled  it  by  remaining  in 
the  great  current  of  the  best  Pharisaic 
ideas ;  that  is,  by  preaching  a  large  spirit- 
ualization  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  is 
shown  by  the  Beatitudes  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  1  by  the  sermon  at  Nazareth  in 
which  he  cites  Isaiah, ^  by  the  parable  of 
the  Sower,  3  by  his  reply  to  the  emissaries 
of  John  the  Baptist,*  in  a  word,  by  the  en- 
tire first  part  of  his  ministry.  But  if  he 
did  not  as  yet  preach  his  own  person,  he 
was  none  the  less  convinced,  from  the  time 
of  his  baptism,  that  he  bore  in  his  person 
the  realization  of  the  "Hope  of  Israel." 

Since  he  was  the  Messiah,  he  must  one 
day  return  to  judge  the  world ;  and  during 
his  entire  public  life  he  affirmed  the  Judg- 
ment to  come  with  the  same  vigor,  the 
same  unalterable  conviction.  He  closed 
the  teachings  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
in  the  first  part  of  his  ministry,  by  declar- 
ing that  in  the  last  day  he  would  say  to 
those  who  had  not  done  the  will  of  the 
Father,  "Depart  from  me,  I  never  knew 

1  Matt.  V.  3  ff.  2  Luke  iv.  16  ff. 

8  Matt.  xiii.  4  ff.  *  Matt.  xi.  2  ff. 


156  JES[TS   CHRIST 

you;"^  and  in  one  of  his  last  parables, 
when  he  was  about  to  die,  when  his  cross 
and  its  ignominy  were  distinctly  before 
him,  he  declared,  with  the  same  certitude, 
that  he  should  one  day  preside  at  the 
solemn  assizes  in  which  all  humanity  would 
be  judged.^  Returning  in  his  glory  in 
the  clouds  of  heaven,  he  would  sit  upon  a 
throne,  and  put  some  on  his  right  hand, 
others  on  his  left.  It  is  impossible  to 
minimize  the  immense  force  of  this  testi- 
mony which  Jesus  gave  to  himself. 

He  insisted  upon  his  Messianic  authority 
all  his  life.  His  confidence  in  himself,  the 
conviction  with  which  he  spoke  of  him- 
self and  asserted  himself,  never  weakened. 
Quite  the  contrary,  he  was  never  more 
positive  than  in  the  hour  when  the  cross 
confronted  him,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  hour 
when  overwhelming  defeat  appeared  to 
himself  to  be  inevitable. 

Later,  men  would  explain  this :  councils 
would  bring  new  elements  to  the  doctrine 
of  Jesus  concerning  himself.  It  is  for 
theologians  to  ask  whether  these  new  ele- 
ments which  the  Church  has  contributed  are 
simply  a  logical,  inevitable,  necessary  de- 

1  Matt.  vii.  23.  '^  Matt.  xxv.  31  ff. 


BEFORE   HIS  MINISTRY  157 

cluction  from  what  Jesus  has  said  of  his  per- 
son, or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
only  a  dej)lorable  deviation  from  it.  There 
was  to  grow  up  a  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
of  three  Gods  who  are  each  God  and  yet 
constitute  only  one  God.  This  defiance 
to  good  sense  was  to  be  still  more  accen- 
tuated. It  would  come  to  be  taught  that 
one  substance  could  be  transformed  into 
another  without  losing  the  properties  which 
reveal  it  to  our  senses ;  finally,  a  Christian 
Pantheon  would  come  to  be  created,  and  a 
secondary  order  of  worship,  in  which  saints, 
angels,  virgins,  and  martyrs  would  take  in 
popular  devotion  the  place  of  God  himself, 
and  of  his  Son. 


THE    ORIGINALITY   OF  JESUS 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   ORIGINALITY   OF   JESUS 

"I^ZE  have  endeavored  to  show  in  Jesus, 
as  a  man  of  his  time,  a  Jew  grow- 
ing up  in  the  midst  of  the  religious  be- 
liefs of  his  contemporaries,  studying  them, 
assimilating  or  rejecting  them,  always 
independent  of  them,  and  yet  obliged  to 
reckon  with  them.  But  not  one  of  the 
great  personalities  of  history  may  be  en- 
tirely explained  in  this  way,  and  Jesus 
less  than  any  other.  If  he  was  not  an 
exception  to  the  general  law  which  ordains 
that  every  man  shall  be  determined  by  his 
race,  his  environment,  and  the  age  in  which 
he  is  born,  no  more  was  he  an  exception 
to  that  other  mysterious  and  hidden  law, 
according  to  which  there  is  in  every  great 
individuality  a  deep,  hidden  force  which 
remains  beyond  the  pale  of  all  appreciation. 
If  a  Shakespeare,  a  Luther,  a  Napoleon 
have  their  own  originality,  and  are  not  to 
be  entirely  explained  by  heredity,  environ- 
11 


162  JESUS   CHRIST 

ment,  and  the  time  in  which  they  lived, 
much  less  is  Jesus. 

In  what  consists  the  originality  of  Jesus  ? 
What  is  its  very  essence  ?  To  this  ques- 
tion we  think  the  impartial  historian  must 
unhesitatingly  answer:  The  very  clear 
and  full  consciousness  of  a  union  with 
God,  which  nothing  in  the  past  had  ever 
troubled,  and  which  nothing  troubled  in 
the  present.  The  Old  Testament  taught 
him  about  God;  nature  disclosed  him  to 
him,  and  he  saw  him  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  in  nature.  But  this  exterior  vision  was 
as  nothing  compared  with  the  permanent 
inward  vision  which  illuminated  his  soul. 
Between  God  and  him  there  was  a  constant 
and  mysterious  interchange ;  God  was  his 
Father,  he  was  his  Son,  and  this  com- 
munion was  alive,  and  was  never  dis- 
turbed. At  a  later  day  theologians  might 
speak  of  two  natures.  Let  us  leave  the 
theologians  to  themselves.  The  reality  of 
history  speaks  to  us  in  nobler  language 
than  theirs;  and  if  we  remain  upon  the 
territory  of  facts,  we  see  in  Jesus  the 
supreme  revelation  of  God  upon  earth. 
The  longings  of  ancient  humanity  were 
realized   in   him;  its  religious  pilgrimage 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  163 

was  ended;  it  had  tried  all  the  religions 
of  Paganism,  and  now  he  had  appeared  in 
whom  it  could  rest.  There  is  nothing 
beyond  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
and  man  can  conceive  of  nothing. 

Without  doubt  there  have  been  vision- 
aries, mystics,  illumijiati,  who  also  have 
possessed  God,  lived  in  him,  lost  them- 
selves in  him;  but  their  own  personality 
disappeared,  while  with  Jesus  the  con- 
sciousness of  God  was  never  apart  from 
his  consciousness  of  himself.  The  more 
he  felt  God  in  and  with  him,  the  more 
evident  became  his  own  personality,  the 
stronger  his  assurance  that  he  was  himself 
man,  such  as  man  should  be,  the  true  man, 
the  Son  of  God.  The  more  he  possessed 
God  the  more  he  possessed  himself;  and  it 
was  because  the  consciousness  which  he 
had  of  his  own  value  was  never  separated 
from  his  consciousness  of  God  that  he 
could  say,  "Come  unto  me,"  "Believe  in 
me."  It  was  thus  that  he  attained  to  faith 
in  his  divine  mission,  and  to  the  conviction 
that  he  was  in  the  world  for  its  salvation. 
His  faith  in  his  Messianic  vocation  and 
his  faith  in  his  own  perfect  holiness  were 
nothing   else  than  a  consciousness  of  his 


164  JESUS    CHRIST 

union  with  God,  or  faith  in  his  own 
Divinity. 

Let  us  try  to  be  exact.  If  Jesus  had 
these  convictions,  there  are  only  two 
possible  suppositions,  —  those  which  we 
pointed  out  in  our  Introduction.  Accord- 
ing to  the  first,  he  was  the  victim  of  a 
strange  and  prodigious  delusion  when  he 
believed  himself  to  be  in  constant  relations 
with  God,  in  delusion  when  he  had  faith 
in  himself,  in  delusion  when  he  permitted 
himself  to  be  acclaimed  as  Messiah ;  and  he 
died  the  victim  of  this  mad  mistake.  It 
is  thus,  we  have  said,  that  Renau  under- 
stood Jesus.  His  exquisite  charm,  hav- 
ing first  seduced  the  multitudes,  ended  by 
seducing  himself,  and,  intoxicated  with 
success,  he  ended  at  last  in  madness. 

The  other  alternative  alone  seems  to  us 
possible;  and  that  in  the  name  of  facts 
impartially  observed,  for  we  would  here 
give  simply  a  historical  verification.  We 
believe  that  it  was  the  inward  development 
of  his  moral  consciousness  which  led  Jesus 
to  declare  himself  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 
His  vocation  did  not  come  to  him  from 
without;  it  was  not  events  which  made 
Jesus  the  Son  of  God,  for  the  events  can 


BEFORE  HIS   MINISTRY  165 

only  be  explained  by  the  consciousness 
which  Jesus  had  of  being  the  Son  of  God. 

Not  long  ago  we  wrote  the  words  "  per- 
fect holiness  of  Jesus."  It  is  impossible  to 
prove  directly  his  perfect  holiness,  for 
documents  are  wanting,  and  the  life  of 
Jesus  is  too  little  known.  But  it  can  be 
proved  that  he  always  had  a  consciousness 
of  integrity,  and  that  he  was  never  known 
to  repent.  It  is  therefore  permitted  to 
affirm  that  there  was  nothing  culpable  in 
his  life,  for  this  may  be  legitimately  inferred 
from  these  two  facts.  This  is  why  we 
defined  as  holiness  his  perfect  union  with 
God,  his  constant  and  unalterable  feeling  of 
the  entire  approval  of  Him  whom  he  called 
the  Father ;  in  a  word,  the  consciousness  of 
a  cloudless  integrity.  The  peace  of  his  soul 
was  never  disturbed;  he  regretted  noth- 
ing, was  ashamed  of  nothing,  was  guilty  of 
nothing. 

But  he  knew  our  temptations ;  he  must 
have  conquered  them,  and  his  victories  were 
not  achieved  without  suffering.  Jesus  had 
a  very  vivid  and  profound  feeling  with 
regard  to  sin.  The  story  of  the  tempta- 
tion in  the  desert  shows  him  to  us  as 
struggling  against  e\dl  just  such  as  it  pre- 


166  JESUS   CHRIST 

sents  itself  to  us.  He  had  been  haunted 
by  the  dream  of  an  easy  success;  he  had 
known  what  was  the  intoxication  of  pride, 
he  had  divined  the  allurements  of  the 
flesh.  But  he  had  never  yielded  for  so 
much  as  an  instant;  his  efforts  had  always 
been  victorious,  and  he  had  never  weakened 
in  his  incessant  conflict.  Therefore  we 
never  find  in  him  the  slightest  feeling  of 
moral  powerlessness.  And  yet  it  is  the 
best  among  the  children  of  men  who  al- 
ways feel  themselves  the  most  weak ;  the 
most  advanced  in  the  right  way  who  be- 
lieve themselves  to  have  taken  only  the 
first  steps ;  those  who  are  nearest  to  reach- 
ing the  goal  who  fear  they  may  never 
attain  it.  Such  was  the  experience  of  men 
like  St.  Paul,  Pascal,  St.  Cyran,  Adolphe 
Monod.  The  ideal  appeared  to  them  ever 
higher  and  more  distant,  their  will  without 
strenofth,  and  their  conflict  without  success. 
With  Jesus  there  was  nothing  of  the 
kind.  He  was  sure  of  himself,  sure  of 
God,  sure  of  his  own  holiness.  His  soul 
bore  no  scars,  for  it  had  never  received 
a  wound,  never  suffered  a  moral  defeat. 
Strange  fact,  which  manifests  itself  with 
an  incontestable  historic  verity,  he  knew 


BEFORE  BIS   MINISTRY  167 

not  what  it  was  to  feel  himself  pardoned 
and  restored.  He  had  never  trembled  in 
humiliation  at  the  secret  and  overwhelm- 
ing memory  of  a  moral  fall.  There  had 
never  been  an  interval  between  his  will 
and  his  duty,  and  the  plaints  of  great 
saints  had  never  rent  his  soul.  The  good 
which  he  willed,  that  he  did ;  the  law  that 
he  gave  to  himself,  that  he  fulfilled;  the 
ideal  which  presented  itself  to  liim  he 
realized;  and  yet  his  ideal  of  holiness,  of 
uprightness  and  love,  his  ideal  of  moral 
perfection,  is  the  highest  that  ever  was. 

Is  it  possible  to  define  the  character  of 
Jesus  ?  We  cannot  arrive  at  such  a  defini- 
tion by  showing  that  all  good  qualities  are 
to  be  found  united  in  him.  If  we  could 
show  this,  we  should  only  have  made  more 
impossible  the  description  of  his  character. 
For  if  he  had  good  qualities  of  the  most 
opposite  kinds,  and,  in  consequence,  all 
characters,  then  he  had  none  at  all, —  which 
is  impossible.  A  person  without  charac- 
ter would  be  an  abstraction  \vith  neither 
interest  nor  life.  Nothing  is  so  tedious  as 
the  story  of  so-called  perfect  persons,  in 
works  of  the  imagination.     But  Jesus  is 


168  JESUS    CHRIST 

the  most  interesting,  the  most  captivating 
personality  in  history.  We  always  come 
back  to  him ;  the  enigma  of  his  person  and 
life  is  always  before  us.  He  therefore  had 
a  character,  an  individuality  of  clearest, 
most  well-defined  outlines. 

Nevertheless,  it  seems  to  us  that  though 
a  complete  definition  of  the  character  of 
Jesus  is  impossible,  there  are  yet  two 
characteristics  which  dominate  all  others. 

The  first  is  this:  The  faculties  of  his 
soul  were  always  alert.  His  reason  was 
always  firm  and  enlightened;  his  heart 
always  open  to  all  sympathies,  his  will 
always  of  a  heroic  energy.  The  exterior 
world  was  never  closed  to  him ;  he  always 
had  his  eyes  open  to  all  that  surrounded 
him,  and  at  every  moment  he  gave  himself 
without  reserve.  This  is  the  first  feature 
which  strikes  us  in  the  character  of  Jesus. 

The  second  is  self-collectedness.  He 
loved  retirement  and  solitude  because  there 
he  found  the  Father,  who  "is  in  secret;" 
and  we  have  said  that  he  was  the  first  to 
put  in  practice  his  precept,  "  When  thou 
prayest,  shut  thy  door."^  In  consequence, 
we   find   in   him   neither  the   thoughtless 

1  Matt.  vi.  6. 


BEFORE  BIS  M/X/STRy  169 

enthusiasm  which  anticipates  the  hour  of 
duty,  nor  the  cowardice  which  lets  pass 
the  moment  for  doing  it.  He  was  always 
ready;  but  he  awaited  the  decisive  hour, 
that  which  he  called  "  the  hour  appointed 
by  the  Father."  There  was  therefore  in 
him  inward  harmony,  deep  coherence,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  dramatic  progress. 

During  his  ministry  he  was  never  guided 
by  external  fatalism ;  everything  was  with 
him  the  product  of  a  free  decision.  Noth- 
ing ever  broke  down  that  decision,  noth- 
ing ever  made  it  flinch.  His  life  was  the 
greatest  drama  of  history,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  the  most  perfect,  —  a  moral  drama, 
whose  sole  factor,  personal  and  always 
active,  was  liis  heroic  will. 

These  seem  to  us  to  have  been  the  two 
dominant  features  of  Jesus'  character. 
They  were  complementary  to  each  other, 
and  constituted  his  personality.  We  have 
already  made  them  manifest  when  defining 
his  holiness.  Jesus  shows  us,  on  one  side, 
man  such  as  he  ought  to  be,  whose  moral 
stature  is  complete,  the  man  who  is  a  true 
Son  of  God ;  and  on  the  other  side  a  deep 
and  never- troubled  union  with  God,  com- 
plete harmony  between  the  Father  and  the 
Son. 


170  JESUS   CHRIST 

We  have  endeavored  in  the  preceding 
pages  to  separate  the  figure  of  Jesus  from 
the  theological  and  dogmatic  notions  which 
were  formulated  by  the  Church  at  a  later 
day.  The  task  was  difficult,  perhaps  im- 
possible; in  any  case,  we  cannot  pursue 
it  farther.  Jesus,  during  his  ministry, 
declared  that  he  was  the  object  of  the 
Christian  religion, —  that  the  faith,  the  love, 
and  the  worship  of  believers  ought  to  be 
concentrated  upon  him.  Later  the  Church 
would  say:  Jesus  said  that  we  must  be- 
lieve on  him  because  he  was  this  or  that. 
We  leave  on  one  side  these  hecmises,  and, 
faithful  to  the  method  which  we  imposed 
upon  ourselves,  we  confine  ourselves  to 
setting  forth  the  facts,  —  the  historic  facts 
which  alone  are  beyond  all  dispute.  Now, 
if  any  fact  is  certain,  it  is  that  Jesus  de- 
clared that  he  would  reconcile  earth  with 
heaven;  that  he  would  restore  the  sinner, 
console  the  afflicted,  give  eternal  life. 
Here  is  his  originality,  and  it  is  undeni- 
able; here  is  also  his  power.  Men  may 
show  us,  if  they  will,  that  all  Christian 
morals  were  already  to  be  found  in  Hel- 
lenic morality;  it  is  none  the  less  certain 
that    Greek    philosophy  remained  sterile, 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  171 

and  that  Christianity  has  transformed  the 
world. 

Without  doubt,  Jesus  Christ  was  horn 
at  a  propitious  day  and  hour.  We  have 
said  that  Luther,  born  a  hundred  years 
earlier,  would  not  have  been  Luther;  any 
precursor  of  the  Reformation  who  died 
obscure  might,  perhaps,  have  been  as  great 
as  he,  if  he  had  been  born  in  the  same  time 
as  he.  It  matters  not,  for  the  personality 
of  Jesus  towers  far  above  all  that  he  can 
have  owed  to  his  time  and  his  eiiviron- 
ment.  Here  is  one  proof  among  a  thou- 
sand, and  it  also  is  from  facts.  The  notion 
of  sin  is  closely  connected  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  Jesus.  Christ  carried  war  into 
the  hearts  of  men  by  awakening  there  a 
purely  moral  sense,  —  the  sense  of  sin ;  and 
to  awaken  it  he  laid  no  stress  upon  the 
duality  of  mind  and  matter.  Tlie  most 
characteristic  feature  of  Christian  doctrine, 
the  most  profound  cause  of  its  action  in 
the  world,  comes  from  its  notion  of  holi- 
ness. A  thirst  for  purity  and  perfection 
appeared  upon  the  earth  with  Jesus.  No 
doubt  he  did  not  create  it.  The  notion  of 
hoHness  is  a  Hebraic  notion;  nevertheless, 
it  is  only  from  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ  that 


172  JESUS   CHRIST 

men  have  carried  on  an  interior  struggle, 
have  gone  down  into  themselves  and  dis- 
covered in  their  souls  hidden  treasures  and 
unknown  springs,  —  an  immense  fact,  inex- 
plicable by  the  mere  preaching  of  holiness 
upon  the  lips  of  the  Christ,  and  to  be  ex- 
plained only  by  the  moral  perfection  of  the 
person  of  Jesus.  If  men  like  St.  Paul, 
St.  Augustine,  Luther,  Pascal,  have  not 
chosen  for  themselves  the  defilements  and 
degradations  of  the  world;  if  they  hun- 
gered for  the  ideal,  were  athirst  for  holi- 
ness ;  if  they  smote  upon  their  breasts  and 
implored  the  pardon  of  God  with  tears,  — 
it  was  because  Jesus  had  shown  them  what 
is  the  perfection  which  God  requires.  If, 
finally,  Jesus  brought  about  the  most  for- 
midable crisis  in  human  history,  it  is  be- 
cause he  was  perfectly  holy.  The  Jewish 
conscience  has  become  the  conscience  of 
humanity  itself.  All  its  promises,  all  its 
hopes,  all  its  aspirations  were  realized  in 
Jesus.  He  was  the  normal  man,  man  such 
as  he  was  intended  to  be.  There  was  no 
weakness  in  his  life,  and  none  will  ever  be 
discovered  there.  The  tradition  of  sin  was 
vanquished,  and  it  is  he  who  conquered  it. 


CONCLUSION 


J 


CONCLUSION 

ESUS  is  ready,  and  about  to  begin  his 
ministry.  He  is  about  thirty  years 
old;^  he  is  definitively  leaving  Nazareth, 
deciding  to  establish  himself  in  Caper- 
naum, a  large  city  on  the  border  of  the 
Lake  of  Tiberias.  He  will  dwell  in  a 
house  which  will  become  his  own.  From 
it  he  will  travel  about  in  Galilee,  and  will 
gather  around  him  numerous  disciples. 
4=  His  first  preaching  will  be  the  pure  and 
simple  repetition  of  the  call  of  John  the 
Baptist :  "  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  at  hand."  ^ 

Let  us  try  to  picture  him  to  ourselves  as 
he  was  then.  His  dress  is  composed  of 
two  garments,  the  tunic  and  the  mantle. 
His  tunic  is  of  linen,  fitted  to  the  body, 
with  sleeves,  and  reaching  to  the  feet;  his 

1  Luke  iii.  2o.  2  ]\iatt.  iii.  2. 


176  JESUS   CHRIST 

mantle  is  white,  striped  with  brown  or 
dark  blue ;  ^  it  is  wide  and  floating  when 
he  walks,  but  he  often  binds  it  close  to 
his  waist  with  a  girdle.  His  feet  are  shod 
with  leather  sandals,  fastened  with  thongs, 
and  made  of  the  skin  of  the  camel  or 
hyena.  He  has  a  staff  in  his  hand,  and 
on  his  head  a  turban,  without  which  he  is 
never  seen.  He  removes  it  only  at  night, 
and  puts  it  on  every  morning ;  he  wears  it 
in  the  house  and  in  the  synagogues;  he 
prays  with  covered  head.  Fastened  under 
the  chin  by  a  cord,  it  falls  down  on  either 
side  over  his  shoulders  and  his  tunic. 

With  regard  to  the  exterior  aspect  of 
Jesus,  his  face,  we  have  no  information. 
We  should  be  glad  if  the  traditional  pic- 
ture were  historic;  it  would  be  difficult 
to  picture  Jesus  to  ourselves  under  any 
other  form.  Nevertheless,  this  traditional 
type  is  purely  conventional.  The  writ- 
ings of  those  who  knew  Jesus,  the  writings 
of  the  apostles,  never  give  any  informa- 
tion as  to  his  exterior  aspect.  The  most 
ancient  Fathers  who  speak  of  him  —  Jus- 

1  These  were  the  usual  colors ;  but  it  is  possible 
that  Jesus  had  adopted  the  white  garment  of  the 
Essenes. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  177 

tin  Martyr,  Tertiillian,  Origen  — all  af- 
firm that  he  was  small  of  stature  and 
plain  of  face.  Let  us  hasten  to  add  that 
this  assertion  rests  on  nothing  historical, 
but  is  an  a  priori  conclusion,  drawn  from 
Isaiah's  description  of  the  servant  of  Je- 
hovah :  1  "  There  is  no  beauty  in  him  that  we 
should  desire  him,"  "He  has  no  form  nor 
comeliness,"  etc.  These  passages,  it  was 
said,  are  prophetic:  they  must  therefore 
tell  us  exactly  how  Jesus  looked. 

The  Gnostic  heretics  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, whose  witness  is  as  ancient  as  that 
of  the  Fathers  whom  we  have  just  named, 
sketched  the  face  of  Jesus,  and  asserted 
that  in  these  pictures  they  reproduced  a 
portrait  made  by  Pilate  himself.  Accord- 
ing to  them,  Pilate  was  so  much  struck 
with  the  face  of  Jesus  at  the  time  of  his 
judgment,  that  even  while  proceeding  with 
his  interrogatory  he  at  once  sketched  his 
picture.  This  entirely  fabulous  assertion 
is  reported  by  Irenseus  and  Hippolytus. 
One  of  the  pictures  representing  the  pre- 
tended sketch  by  Pilate  was  placed  by 
Alexander  Severus  in  his  Oratory,  beside 
the  portraits  of  Abraham  and  Apollo. 
I  Isa.  lii.,  liii. 
12 


178  JESUS  CHRIST 

Eusebius,  in  the  fourth  century,  says 
that  there  are  in  Palestine  several  portraits 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  even  his  statue ;  but 
we  do  not  know  under  what  form  he  was 
there  portrayed.  However,  at  this  epoch 
they  began  to  represent  Jesus  as  the  per- 
fect type  of  physical  beauty.  This  asser- 
tion rests  no  more  than  the  other  upon 
historic  data,  but,  like  that,  takes  its 
origin  from  a  passage  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. According  to  this  passage,  there 
applied  to  Jesus  Christ,  he  must  have  been 
"the  fairest  among  the  sons  of  men."  ^ 

About  this  time  we  find  legends  appear- 
ing. According  to  them,  Luke  was  a 
painter,  and  made  a  portrait  of  Jesus. 
King  Abgar  of  Edessa  possessed  this  por- 
trait, which  Jesus  himself  had  sent  him. 
The  veil  of  St.  Veronica  had  also  pre- 
served the  imprint  of  the  face  of  Christ. 
Finally,  an  ecclesiastical  writer  of  the 
eighth  century  undertook  to  describe  Jesus 
Christ,  but  without  other  guide  than  his 
imagination. 

In  the  twelfth  century  was  fabricated  a 
so-called  letter  of  Lentulus  to  the  Roman 
senate,   describing  the  exterior  aspect  of 

1  Psalm  xlv.  3. 


BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY  179 

Christ;  and  in  the  fourteenth  century 
Nicephorus  Calixtus  also  made  a  descrip- 
tion of  Jesus.  Finally,  was  invented  the 
letter  which  Pilate  wrote  to  Herod  when 
sending  Jesus  Christ  to  him. 

From  that  time  the  type  of  Christ  was 
fixed,  —  a  young  man  with  abundant  curl- 
ing hair  and  undivided  beard,  resembling  a 
young  god,  full  of  grace  and  strength. 
Some  features  of  this  portrait,  relatively 
recent,  and  invented  out  of  whole  cloth, 
may  be  authentic.  The  Jews  wore  the 
beard  undivided  and  the  hair  long;  it  is 
therefore  exact  to  say  that  it  was  thus  with 
Jesus.  But  we  know  nothing  more  than 
this;  and  the  simple  fact  that  Judas  was 
obliged  to  kiss  him  in  order  to  point  him 
out  shows  that  when  he  was  with  the 
twelve  apostles  nothing  distinguished  him 
from  any  one  of  them,  —  neither  his  height, 
nor  his  garments,  nor  his  face.  The  moral 
perfection  of  his  soul  certainly  appeared 
in  the  habitual  expression  of  his  features, 
and  shone  in  his  glance ;  but  tliis  fact  does 
not  warrant  a  precise  conclusion  as  to  the 
face  of  Jesus,  since  those  who  knew  him 
not  might  take  him  for  one  of  the  twelve 
and  not  for  the  Master  himself. 


180  JESUS   CHRIST 

Let  us  return,  in  closing,  to  some  of  the 
questions  which  we  put  in  our  Introduc- 
tion; and  first,  let  no  one  say  any  more 
about  the  charm  of  Jesus.  To  explain  the 
enigma  offered  by  his  life  by  saying  he 
was  a  charmer  is  notoriously  insufficient. 
That  there  emanated  from  his  person  a 
very  great  charm  is  not  to  be  doubted, 
provided  we  give  this  word  a  very  ele- 
vated meaning ;  but  even  then  it  seems  to 
us  to  be  very  ill  chosen.  Doubtless  no 
one  dreams  of  characterizing  as  charm- 
ing his  precepts  which  call  for  self-sacri- 
fice, devotion,  and  obedience,  or  of  finding 
a  charm  in  the  spectacle  of  Jesus  putting 
the  first  of  his  precepts  into  practice,  and 
giving  the  example  of  submission  and 
renunciation.  It  would  be  better  worth 
while  to  give  up  the  word,  and  when 
Christ  is  in  question,  never  to  use  it. 

We  also  asked.  How  did  Jesus  come 
to  announce  himself,  and  to  believe  him- 
self to  be  the  Messiah?  In  the  preced- 
ing pages  we  have  tried  to  answer  this 
question  in  part,  and  in  particular  to 
show  that  there  was  no  trace  of  madness 
in  Jesus.  On  the  contrary,  that  in  him 
which  is  most  striking,  the  more  closely 


BEFORE  niS   MINISTRY  181 

one  studies  liim,  is  his  possession  of  him- 
self, his  clear-sightedness,  his  complete 
freedom  from  illusion.  If  he  perceived 
that  Jewish  theology  was  taking  the  wrong 
way,  that  the  doctrine  of  a  Messiah  who 
should  seek  his  own  glory,  astonish  the 
world  by  his  miracles,  and  rule  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  was  false,  — it  was 
because  he  never  felt  in  the  least  degree 
the  influence  of  the  beliefs  of  his  people, 
and  because,  far  from  being  led  away  by 
the  ideas  of  his  time,  he  struggled  against 
and  conquered  them. 

It  appears,  then,  that  Jesus,  by  himself 
alone,  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile  world,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  universal  salvation 
achieved  by  a  purely  spiritual  work.  And 
he  said  to  himself,  in  advance,  that  though 
he  were  met  by  outbreaks  of  hatred,  though 
he  were  not  understood,  though  he  suc- 
cumbed in  the  struggle,  he  should  be  none 
the  less  convinced,  to  the  very  end,  that  he 
had  made  the  right  choice,  and  should  die 
with  the  approbation  of  his  own  conscience 
and  the  approval  of  God. 

And  now  let  us  pursue  our  task;  and 
may  God  give  us  time  and  strength  to  go 
on  with  it  to  the  very  end.     We  have  to 


182  JESUS   CHRIST  BEFORE  HIS  MINISTRY 

speak  of  Jesus  during  his  ministry.  After 
that,  in  a  third  volume,  we  shall  describe 
his  trial,  his  death,  his  resurrection. 
Henceforth  we  shall  not  need  to  conjec- 
ture, for  there  are  existing  sources.  We 
have  already  borrowed  from  them  at  times. 
What  is  their  value  ?  The  answer  to  this 
question  will  be  the  object  of  our  first 
study  in  the  following  book. 


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Jesus  Christ  before  His  ministry 

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